Ucommune, the China-based workspace provider backed by corporates Beijing Xingpai, Aikang, Dahong Group, Star Group, Junfa Group, Prosperity Holdings and Yintai Land, is set to go public through a reverse merger.
The company agreed on Monday to merge with Orisun Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) listed on Nasdaq, in a deal that will value the combined entity at $769m. It had originally filed for a $100m initial public offering in December 2019.
Founded in 2015, UCommune runs a network of co-working spaces with some 700,000 members that spans 211 offices in China and Singapore. It is working towards a more asset-light approach that will involve it working with landlords while taking on renovation work on their spaces to ready them for use.
UCommune’s management team will continue to run the company, which will henceforth be known as Ucommune International. It is set to take on Orisun’s listing position with a new ticker symbol.
The deal comes after about $745m in funding for Ucommune including a $29.8m investment by a real estate affiliate of industrial conglomerate Beijing Xingpai in April 2019.
The company secured $43.5m in an August 2018 series D round led by Prosperity Holdings and reportedly backed by RK Properties, a real estate arm of property and infrastructure provider Road King, at a $1.8bn valuation.
Prosperity Holdings had already co-led Ucommune’s $178m series C round with diversified conglomerate Aikang Group, media company Star Group and property developer Beijing Land Capital in August 2017, three months after it received $58m from Beijing Xingpai.
Real estate developers Junfa Group and Dahong Group had joined Tianhong Asset Management – an affiliate of financial services provider Ant Financial – Tianming Shuangchuang Technology and Shanghai Chuanghehui Fund to invest $58.4m in the company at a reported $1bn valuation at the start of the year.
Ucommune had secured $46m in pre-series B funding from real estate developer Yintai Land and Zhongrong International Trust in 2016. Its other investors include Gopher Asset Management, CIC Hanfor, Sequoia Capital, ZhenFund, All-Stars Investment, CEC Capital, Qianhai Wutong Mergers and Acquisitions Funds, CKing Home-Key Investment Group and Context Lab.
Photo courtesy of Ucommune Group Holdings.
