Ucommune, a China-based co-working space provider backed by real estate developers Dahong Group, Junfa Group, Prosperity Holdings and Yintai Land, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering, Reuters reported today.
The company submitted the filing last month and is seeking to go public in the US before the end of 2019, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The news follows reports in July this year stating that Ucommune was aiming to raise up to $200m in an IPO expected to take place in the US by 2020.
Ucommune was founded in 2015 as URWork and has since grown its presence to 200 locations across 37 cities in China, Singapore, the US and UK. Its key markets include Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and New York.
The offering would follow approximately $745m in equity financing to date, the most recent of which involved it raising $29.8m from an unnamed real estate affiliate of industrial group Beijing Xingpai in April this year.
Ucommune had previously received $200m in a November 2018 series D round led by investment firm All-Stars Investment that featured investment bank CEC Capital. Reuters stated the round valued it at $2.6bn, though reports at the time suggested the valuation was approximately $3bn.
Prosperity Holdings co-led a $43.5m round for the company in August 2018, reportedly with RK Properties, a property development unit operated by infrastructure investment firm Road King Infrastructure.
Ucommune collected $178m in pre-series C funding from Prosperity Holdings, Beijing Land Capital, conglomerate Aikang Group and media firm Star Group in August 2017, with a contribution from Beijing Xingpai, which had already supplied $58m of capital three months earlier.
Dahong and Junfa were involved in a $58.4m round in January the same year, investing alongside Tianhong Asset Management, a fund management affiliate of financial services firm Ant Financial, in addition to Shanghai Chuanghehui Fund and Tianming Shuangchuang Technology, at a $1bn valuation.
In 2015, Ucommune received $46m in funding from Yintai Land, Zhongrong International Trust, Gopher Asset Management, CIC Hanfor, Sequoia Capital and ZhenFund. Its shareholders also include Qianhai Wutong Mergers and Acquisitions Funds, CKing Home-Key Investment Group and Context Lab.
The company is thought to have appointed Citigroup, Credit Suisse and Bank of America as underwriters for the IPO. JPMorgan Chase, which was reported to be overseeing the proposed offering in February this year, does not appear to have been hired.
Photo courtesy of Ucommune.
