Is DM CAFE, a coffee brand under Zhumi, making multiple store adjustments and struggling to cross boundaries?

This article is from WeChat official account: CEO Brand Observation, written by Wang Wan From high-profile entry, to the ambitious "Thousand Store Plan", and then to the closure of multiple stores, DM CAFE, a coffee brand under Zhumi, has experienced a rollercoaster like turning point in just three years. Entering with the halo of a technology company Zhuimi Coffee was founded in June 2023, entering the market with the halo of a technology company to make premium coffee, with the brand concept of "One Cup, One World". In September 2024, the brand's first store DREAME CAFE Pro landed at the Shanghai West Bund Dream Center, inviting renowned architect Qing Shan Zhouping to design the space and create three main theme spaces: "Gallery", "Theater", and "Park", balancing brand image display and immersive consumer experience. The store's sales exceeded 5000 cups within three days of opening, with a monthly revenue of 350000 yuan, making it an unparalleled success. Afterwards, Zhumi Coffee steadily expanded its dual store strategy of "DREAME CAFE Pro" and "DREAME CAFE Young". The former is located in urban landmarks and high-end commercial districts, while the latter targets dynamic commercial districts where young people gather and high traffic areas such as office buildings. At the same time, the brand has also launched fast pickup stores in densely populated areas, focusing on the convenient experience of "buy and go". In June 2025, Zhumi Coffee began franchising and launched the "Thousand Store Plan". In just four months, the number of signed stores nationwide has reached nearly 200. However, this round of expansion did not last long. In August of this year, several DM CAFE stores were shut down due to explosions, causing widespread attention. According to the official DM CAFE mini program, there are currently 30 stores listed nationwide, covering 15 cities including Changchun, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen. However, many stores display the status as "busy", "closed" or "temporarily closed", with only 23 stores available for placing orders. In the former core stronghold of DM CAFE in Shanghai, the brand once opened 8 stores, but now only the Shanghai West Bund Dream Center store is still in operation. The person in charge of DM CAFE responded to the media by stating that the brand is currently optimizing and adjusting its store layout in the Shanghai area through overall strategic planning and market evaluation. The first store of Shanghai West Bund Dream Center is still operating normally. But the more crucial signal is that there is no longer a direct equity relationship between DM CAFE and Zhuimi Technology – as early as 2025, its operating entity was renamed from "Zhuimi Coffee (Suzhou) Co., Ltd." to "Leqian Coffee (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.", and the original shareholder "Zhuimi Entrepreneurship Incubator" withdrew, and was fully taken over by "Leqian Coffee (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. Further tracing the equity structure, the ultimate target is "Sky Wuji Intelligent Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.", with actual controller Bai Meifang holding 99.99% of the shares. Meanwhile, Bai Meifang holds 2.2865% of the shares of Zhuimi's parent company, Zhuimi Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., and is the core agent and operator of Zhuimi's non technology projects. A brand that once carried the ambition of "global coffee+lifestyle" is now being spun off by its parent company. Even though the brand revealed that the Beijing Daxing Airport store is currently under renovation and there are plans for other new stores in Shanghai, the story seems difficult to tell anymore. From Boundless Expansion to Strategic Contraction The fate of DM CAFE is not an isolated case, but a part of the overall strategic contraction in pursuit. As the fastest unicorn in the field of intelligent cleaning in China, Zhuimi Technology's total revenue will exceed 40 billion yuan in 2025, with a continuous growth rate of over 100% for six years. Overseas revenue accounts for nearly 80%, and the sweeping robot has won the double first place in global sales and revenue. But this company is clearly not satisfied with this. In recent years, Zhumi has rapidly expanded its presence to various fields such as coffee, AI wearables, trendy toys, automobiles, mobile phones, tea drinks, hot pot, and more. Last March, Zhumi announced that it would become a boundaryless ecological enterprise. Driven by this grand narrative, Zhumi has intensively established various cross-border brands – the tea beverage brand "Shanyemi Tea" was founded in 2024, and the first batch of stores opened in Suzhou and Nanjing in April 2025. Currently, it has more than 40 stores nationwide; The hotpot brand "Boiling Point Plan" was founded in 2025, based on Shanye hotpot and deeply integrating AI technology. Currently, it has opened 11 stores in 9 cities; The trendy gaming industry has also launched brands such as "DREAME MART" (which has already exited the market) and "MOMOTOY". These brands, like DM CAFE, are mostly indirectly owned by Zhumi Technology through its incubators, or actually controlled by Baimei Fang through multiple layers of company chains. Essentially, it is using capital leverage to leverage traffic and narrative, rather than entering every track through deep industry cultivation. The high-speed expansion of multiple parallel lines is quietly accumulating hidden dangers. In the middle of this year, Zhumi suddenly stepped on the emergency brake and carried out large-scale contraction and restructuring of various business units, ultimately integrating into four main business segments. On August 25th, Zhumi officially released a statement on the company's strategic focus and business development, clearly stating that resources will be fully focused on four directions: smart homes, outdoor courtyards, intelligent travel, and embodied intelligence. This means that cross-border consumer brands that were once highly anticipated have been officially included in the list of "non core businesses" for clearance. And without the support of their mother, the future direction of these brands will also be marked with a big question mark. The different fates of a cup of premium coffee The fall of DM CAFE is directly related to the strategic contraction of the parent company. But putting DM CAFE back into the industry coordinates, the specialty coffee track is also undergoing a brutal reshuffle. Seesaw, a boutique coffee brand founded in 2012, is a representative brand of early boutique chain coffee in China, adhering to a fully direct operated large store model of "one store, one design". At its peak, the store scale exceeded 160 and received three rounds of financing, with a valuation of up to 1 billion yuan at one point. But starting from 2023, the brand's stores will continue to shrink, and now there are less than 30 operating stores. In the middle of this year, Seesaw was filed for bankruptcy liquidation. Another representative domestic specialty coffee brand, M Stand, currently has over 650 stores. But since 2024, it has slowed down its expansion pace and launched products such as hamburgers, snacks, and cultural and creative industries to explore growth curves. Blue Bottle Coffee, which entered mainland China in 2022, now only has 14 stores in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. This year, Luckin Coffee's major shareholder, Dazheng Capital, also acquired Blue Bottle Coffee from Nestle. Piye Coffee, regarded as the "ancestor" of boutique coffee, and Japanese boutique coffee brand% Arabica have also slowed down their expansion speed and closed several popular stores one after another. But the contraction and restraint of these brands do not mean that the story of boutique coffee is coming to an end. On the other hand, there is still a group of boutique coffee brands steadily expanding, finding their own way through the cycle. Manner adheres to the business model of "small shop+high cost-effective boutique coffee", and precisely enters the market gap of "boutique and affordable" with the environmental concept of pricing 15-20 yuan and reducing 5 yuan by bringing your own cup. As of now, Manner has surpassed 2600 directly operated stores nationwide, covering core cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, becoming the only brand in the boutique coffee industry to surpass the threshold of thousands of stores. Grid Coffee, also a cross-border coffee brand, was incubated by Yuanfudao in 2021, focusing on single origin coffee across the entire range and adhering to direct sales. Since the accelerated expansion in 2025, the scale of stores nationwide has exceeded 150. Its location focuses on the core business districts of high tier cities, becoming a representative of the accelerated expansion of the track in the past two years. Overall, the development differentiation of premium coffee brands reveals a simple truth: coffee is ultimately a business that requires meticulous cultivation, rather than a story that can be quickly solved by capital and narrative. The inspiration brought by DM CAFE may lie in the fact that cross-border has never been a problem, the question is what kind of posture to use for cross-border. With reverence for the industry, respect for the single store model, and persistence in long termism, any track is worth entering; But if it is only regarded as a supporting role of capital narrative and a piece of puzzle on the grand map, it will collapse faster than it did when it rose. Channel: Commercial Consumption