Danke Apartment, a China-based operator of an online apartment rental platform, has closed a $500m series C round co-led by Ant Financial, the financial services affiliate of e-commerce group Alibaba, TechCrunch reported today.
Hedge fund Tiger Global Management co-led the round, which also included Primavera Capital, CMC Capital, Gaorong Capital and Joy Capital. The company is now valued at more than $2bn.
Founded in 2015, Danke manages approximately 320,000 apartments across nine cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Wuhan, Nanjing and Chengdu.
The company splits up existing, large flats built for families into smaller units aimed at recent graduates and young professionals, making more exclusive neighbourhoods affordable to individual tenants. Danke takes care of housekeeping and maintenance.
Danke employs artificial intelligence-driven technology to calculate housing prices rather than relying on real estate agents.
The series C funding will go towards digitising Danke’s day-to-day operations and expanding its focus to include blue-collar workers.
Danke previously raised $70m in a series B-plus round backed by media group Bertelsmann’s regional investment unit Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI) in June 2018.
Tiger Global led the round, while China Media Capital, Gaorong Capital, Joy Capital, Vision Plus Capital and Shenzhen Doujin Investment Management also joined.
BAI had already contributed to an initial $100m in series B funding in February 2018 that was co-led by China Media Capital and Banyan Capital. That round also included Vision Plus Capital, Youjin Capital and Joy Capital.
Ucommune, the co-working space operator then called UrWork, participated in a $14.7m series A-plus round led by Joy Capital in 2017. The round, which was also backed by Kaiwuhuadeng, followed an undisclosed eight-figure renminbi sum in a series A in 2015.
