Office share business is developing very fast in China, but the market is still at an early stage. MyDreamPlus, with its competitors Ucommune and Kr Space, will need more funds to support their further expansions.
MyDreamPlus (梦想加), a Beijing-based smart workspace service brand, expanded into Shanghai last week by launching an office unit near the Bund. WANG Xiaolu (王晓鲁), a founder of MyDreamPlus, said two more units will be open in the next one month in Shanghai, which will add the total floor space of 40000 square meters.
Inspired by the success of Wework, WEN Mengfei (温梦飞), LI Wenlei (李文磊) and WANG Xiaolu, three serial entrepreneurs, founded MyDreamPlus in May 2015. As Wework becomes one of hottest investment portfolios in the private market, the Chinese counterparts also are frequently pursued by venture capitals. MyDreamPlus, a major player at the forefront of growing co-working space market, completed a CNY 300 million series B financing at the end of March 2018, and secured USD 120 million in a series C funding led by Hillhouse Capital and General Atlantic at a value of USD 500 million five months later.
Backed by sufficient capitals, MyDreamPlus has been actively expanding into Tier 1 cities and new Tier 1 cities. As of November 2018, the company has 23 co-working office units in Beijing and 9 units in Chengdu, which make MyDreamPlus the largest player in these two cities. The company also expanded into Xi’an, Hangzhou, and Chongqing in the second half of 2018. Now, MyDreamPlus operates more than 300000 square meters across near 40 office units.
There are four types of players in Chinese co-working office market: commercial estate developers such as SOHO 3Q, office-share startups such as Ucommune and Kr Space, smart workspace service provider such as MyDreamPlus, and foreign brand such as Wework.
Office share is a business of scale, as of November 2018, Ucommune operates floor space of nearly 700000 square meters, Kr Space operates more than 300000 square meters and Wework China has about 250000 square meters.
Office share business is developing very fast in China, but the market is still at an early stage. MyDreamPlus, with its competitors Ucommune and Kr Space, will need more funds to support their further expansions.