Another day, another venture round for a Chinese co-working space start-up. This is how hot – and potentially how dangerous – China’s shared work space sector is for investors.
Prometheus Capital and IDG Capital Partners announced today that they had invested a combined RMB200 million (US$30 million) in Kr Space, a co-working space spinoff from technology media and entrepreneur service company 36Kr.
Ant Financial-backed 36Kr separated the Kr Space unit into an independent entity in January, and raised an undisclosed series A round from Gobi Partners and others.
Prometheus Capital, founded by Wang Sicong, the son of China’s richest man Dalian Wanda Group’s Wang Jianlin, will help Kr Space secure more property and space for expansion.
"As young people become a larger portion of the working population, new types of work environment will take a bigger share of the office property market," Wang Sicong commented in a statement.
Kr Space currently has 28 co-working space in ten cities in China. It plans to open 60 more sites in 2017 to eventually become a company with 1,000 sites in 100 cities in five years.
Yesterday, Hong Kong-based private real estate investment firm Gaw Capital Partners made an undisclosed investment in naked Hub, a Shanghai-based co-working space network.
In a short span of 13 months, over US$300 million in venture funding has been raised by numerous co-working space start-ups in China.
In Beijing and Shanghai alone, over 500 co-working space sites were set up during the past 18 months ago. Hundreds of new sites are planned to be opened next year.
