China's PE-backed UrWork receives $178m investment
UrWork, a Chinese co-working space operator with a number of private equity backers, has received $178 million as part of a pre-Series C funding round led by a group of strategic investors.
Beijing Capital Land, a real estate investor backed by the Chinese government and Singapore’s GIC Private, participated alongside Beijing Aikang Group, Star Group and Prosperity Holdings. According to The South China Morning Post, investment firm Jingrong Holdings also contributed to the round.
The new capital will be used for technology upgrades and a global expansion, including a continued push in the US. It comes less than a month after Beijing Aikang led a $29.4 million investment in the company. Following UrWork’s merger with competitor New Space earlier this year, the company is said to be worth $1.3 billion.
"The rising concept of co-working addresses the more mobile working style that modern urban professionals have today, where an increasing number of young people work on the go, resulting in an under-utilization of stock assets,” Daqing Mao, founder and CEO of UrWork, said in a statement. “By revitalizing the spaces with craft architecture, designer interior and connected technology, we recapture the latent stock spaces, creating more added values."
UrWork focuses on providing office facilities and related services to entrepreneurs. 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 ($119 million) from Beijing Xingpai Group. This followed closely on a RMB400 million Series B supported by Tianhong Asset Management, an affiliate of Alibaba Group's Ant Financial.
Co-working spaces are proliferating in Asia as companies opt for more flexible real estate arrangements. Recent activity within China includes an $18 million Series A for Bigger and a $500 million investment in a local expansion unit of US-based player WeWork.
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