Ant Group-backed smart vending machine start-up Ubox seeks Hong Kong IPO after failing to list in A-shares market
- Beijing Ubox Online Technology Corp had been working for more than four years to list on the A-shares market, but withdrew its IPO application last year
- The company recorded over US$204 million in total losses over the past two years, which it blamed on the coronavirus pandemic
A smart vending machine operator backed by Chinese fintech giant Ant Group has filed a draft prospectus for an initial public offering in Hong Kong after it failed to list on the mainland’s A-shares market.
According to the prospectus, 16.68 per cent of Beijing Ubox Online Technology Corp, which recorded over US$204 million in total losses in 2020 and 2021, is owned by Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ant Group. Ant is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.
Shanghai Yunxin is the second-largest shareholder of Beijing Ubox, behind only the start-up’s founders Wang Bin and Chen Kunrong, who jointly own a 21.99 per cent stake.
The terms of the IPO and timetable of the listing have been redacted from the document.
The planned IPO in Hong Kong marks a renewed fundraising attempt by Ubox, which in 2019 delisted from the National Equities Exchange and Quotations, an over-the-counter market on the mainland.
The company had been working for more than four years to go public on the A-shares market, but it withdrew its IPO application from the China Securities Regulatory Commission in March 2021, according to a filing.
A few months after Ubox closed a funding round of 1.6 billion yuan (US$239 million) in 2019 led by Ant Group, the start-up’s business became battered by the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a 1.18 billion yuan loss in 2020. Last year, its annual loss dropped to 188 million yuan, the prospectus showed.
A former high-level executive at Chinese tech firm Sina Corp, Wang founded Ubox in 2011. Chen, a former China Mobile executive, joined in the same year. The company is currently focused on vending machines for food, coffee and other drinks, although it has also dabbled in unstaffed karaoke booths, as well as vending machines that sell jewellery and fresh coconuts.
Customers using Ubox’s vending machines can scan their face in front of a screen to pay, a service supported by Ant Group’s Alipay digital payment system. Ubox had more than 102,700 vending machines spanning 288 cities and 31 provincial administrative regions at the end of last year, according to the company.
Ubox did not disclose the impact of the latest wave of Covid-19 outbreaks across China on its business, but it reported that Beijing and Shanghai, two cities that have imposed recent lockdowns, had 9,860 and 3,595 Ubox vending machines, respectively, as of the end of last year.
Additional reporting by Georgina Lee
