China's PE-backed UrWork receives $29m investment

The new investor, also known as Beijing Aikang Group, is a specialist in the health and hospitality sector, and plans to help the company strengthen the core verticals of its existing services platform. The effort will also include development of a new co-working services business model to be launched in the first half of 2018.

According to a statement, the investment follows about two months after a $58.8 million commitment from Chinese sporting goods supplier Star Group. Following UrWork’s merger with competitor New Space earlier this year, the company is said to be worth $1.3 billion.

“Beijing Love & Health Group's investment is the forerunner of a series of facility and service upgrading at UrWork,” said Daqing Mao, founder and CEO of UrWork. “We will continue to complement our existing platform facilities and resources with targeted health hospitality real estate, and contingent resources in shared working space sector.”

UrWork focuses on providing office facilities and services – such as legal, accounting, marketing, and cloud computing services – to start-up founders and small enterprise owners. The company operates across 78 locations in Singapore, New York and more than 20 Chinese cities, servicing some 3,000 companies and 40,000 members. It plans to open another 150 locations across 32 cities worldwide over the next three years.

In May, UrWork and another co-working space company founded by Mao, 5Lmeet, raised a combined RMB800 million ($118 million) from Beijing Xingpai Group, a conglomerate operating in real estate, education, entertainment and financial segments. This followed a RMB400 million Series B round supported by Tianhong Asset Management, an affiliate of Alibaba Group's Ant Financial. Property developers Junfa Group and Dahong Group, and Shanghai Chuanghehui, a fund launched by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, also participated in the Series B.

Co-working spaces are proliferating in Asia as companies opt for more flexible real estate arrangements. In China, it’s estimated that more than 1,000 spaces are in operation across Beijing and Shanghai alone.

Last month, Beijing-based co-working space operator Bigger completed a $18 million Series A led by real estate company Hongfu Group. Meanwhile, Legend Holdings and Hony Capital led a Series F round, reportedly worth $430 million, for an Asian expansion by US-based WeWork.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Support services
• Real estate
• Expansion
• China
• Growth capital