- Ucommune, formerly known as UrWork, has partnered with leading Chinese property developer Vanke
- The two parties will set up joint locations in over ten cities across China, “taking coworking and coliving to the next level”
- Both parties will collaborate on areas such as leasing, investment, operation, and interior design.
China’s largest coworking space provider, UrWork (Beijing) Venture Investment Co. Ltd (known as ucommune) is entering a strategic partnership with China’s leading property developer Vanke, in a bid to build an integrated service platform through shared resources and brand equity.
“The joint partnership with Vanke is to me a family reunion. Being a former member of Vanke myself, the journey with ucommune has been closely connected with Vanke since the very beginning,” says Dr. Mao Daqing, former senior vice president at Vanke. He said that the partnership will see the two parties setting up joint locations in over ten cities across China, taking coworking and coliving to the next level.
The move has come less than two weeks after the acquisition of Woo Space which prompted the value of ucommune to US$1.7bn.
“Ucommune has over 6000 corporate members that are fast-growing and leaders in their respective sectors. While their growth posts high demand on coworking space development, resource integration and platform infrastructure, these enterprises themselves form the main growth drivers of the urban economy. The strategic partnership built on mutual recognition and complementary strengths will see ucommune going from strength to strength,” says Dr.Mao.
Liu Xiao, senior vice president of Vanke says: “ucommune’s wealth of cross-regional operation and management experience, as well as the consummate brand-building expertise will add tremendous value to this win-win partnership. Both parties will be fully committed to synchronising resources, know-how of facility management and operational capabilities to support the growth of more and more start-ups and SMEs in China.”
Mr Liu adds that the strong membership system and the service platform powered by AI and Big Data technologies will create stronger intra-member connectivity and service accuracy, enabling maximised business networking efficiency and efficacy.
This strategic partnership will see both parties collaborating in areas such as: joint commercial leasing, investment and operation, direct leasing, and customised interior design. Apart from physical space sharing, both parties will reach full-scale partnership in developing youth apartments, office buildings in industrial parks as well as equity partnership. The partnership will set a new benchmark and facilitate an integrated platform to support the mature development of the coworking industry in China.
In recent years, the coworking space sector has been growing at year-to-year rate of 30%. It is estimated that by 2019, the total operating area of coworking space in China will reach 51 million square meters. By 2030, 30% of office space will exist in the form of coworking spaces. In the next five years, the development of a platform and sharing economy will become an important part of promoting the growth of the new economy.
