The hot shared office sector has expanded beyond WeWork and the United States and seen newest financing of its apprentice in China.
Kr Space, a Beijing-based shared office and incubator startup, raised RMB 200 million (USD 30 million) recently from IDG and Prometheus Capital, China’s tech blog 36Kr reported on Wednesday.
Prometheus Capital is an investment company owned by Wang Sicong, the only son of Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man. Wang Sicong is a board member of China’s leading real estate company, Wanda Group.
On top of co-working spaces, Kr Space incubates startups and offers other basic services needed to run a business, including legal and taxation-related services.
Aside from that, Kr Space provides professional services, such as financial advisory (FA) services for startups’ financing and cloud storage.
In January, 36Kr, China’s one-stop service platform for startups, announced the spinoff and financing of Kr Space. The financing was led by a fund co-founded by Colony Capital and Shanghai Industrial Investment, followed by Unity Ventures and some other listed companies.
Operations at 36Kr mainly consists of three parts – Kr Space, the shared office operations, FA, the financing services, and a popular tech blog that focuses on internet startups.
Founded in 2014, Kr Space expanded to 10 cities across China, with around 13,000 seats. Currently, 82% of the seats are taken. The head of Kr Space, David Zhong, was previously a vice president at JD.com.
Prometheus Capital said they are positive about the shared offices’ future growth, and trust Kr Space’s team.
“Kr Space is outstanding in operations and resources. It is an integrated part of 36Kr,” announced IDG Capital.
WeWork in March raised USD 430 million and was valued at USD 16 billion. Kr Space’s financing is a sign that shared offices are also booming in China.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)