The coworking space giant has confirmed it is snapping up one of its biggest competitors in China. WeWork CEO Adam Neumann announced the acquisition in a blog post early this morning after rumors of the deal began circulating in Chinese media yesterday:
In that regard, good hospitality, technology, and design are the pillars of the future.
That’s why we are joining forces with naked Hub, which is part of naked Group, a leading hospitality, design, technology, and lifestyle brand that was founded in China in 2007 and has hosted over 1 million guests from China and around the world. naked Hub launched in 2015 and provides 10,000 members across 24 locations with the community and services they need to make a life, not just a living. Founders Grant Horsfield and Delphine Yip-Horsfield and the entire naked team have built an amazing business on the back of great hospitality.
When WeWork opened our first location in Shanghai in 2016, our goal was to give Chinese businesses of all sizes the community, culture, and services to start and scale their operations and provide an environment that promotes innovation. Today, we have 10,000 members across more than a dozen locations. By the end of this year we’ll serve more than 40,000 across 40 locations in Greater China. Together we will have a community of 80,000 people this year, and it will grow to 1 million by the end of 2021.
Though Neumann did not confirm how much WeWork is paying, sources told Bloomberg the company is shelling out “about $400 million” for the deal. The Naked Hub deal is WeWork’s second major acquisition in Asia in a year. In 2017, WeWork bought Singapore-based coworking company Spacemob for an undisclosed sum.
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