As it seeks to compete with Starbucks, Chinese startup Luckin Coffee is reportedly looking at an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States. The effort could bring in approximately $300 million, Bloomberg reported.
According to unnamed sources in the report, the company is working with Credit Suisse for the plan. They also said that the company could bring additional banks into such a deal sometime in the future. However, the sources cautioned that the IPO plans were still in their infancy. The report noted that neither Credit Suisse nor Luckin would comment on the news.
The company aims to bring in consumers who work in offices, but don’t require the large spaces that Starbucks provides. Its stores are cashless, and created for delivery and pickup.
Over the summer, however, news surfaced that Starbucks and Alibaba were teaming up on coffee delivery in China, as Starbucks was trying to regain its footing after a sales slump in the country. (Starbucks is also bringing additional cities in the U.S. to its delivery network via a partnership with Uber Eats.)
The news comes a few weeks after it was reported that Luckin plans to open 2,500 new locations in China this year to overtake Starbucks in the country. Luckin Chief Marketing Officer Yang Fei said at a presentation in Beijing, according to a past Reuters report, “What we want at the moment is scale and speed.” Amid its strategy for quick expansion, the retailer has homed in on delivery, discounts and technology.
Overall, Luckin plans to open more than 4,500 stores by the end of this year. If that were to occur, the retailer would overtake Starbucks with its more than 3,600 stores in the country. The company is backed by China International Capital Corporation and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Limited.
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