Exclusive | Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said to plot China comeback with ‘shared kitchen’ business
- The Uber co-founder is partnering with Zhang Yanqi, former COO at bicycle-sharing firm Ofo, sources say
- The two have worked on the project for a couple of months, the people say
Former Uber Technologies chief executive Travis Kalanick may be considering plans to bring shared kitchens to China, according to people familiar with the matter.
Kalanick plans to bring Los Angeles-based CloudKitchens to China to provide food and beverage businesses with real-estate, facilities management, technology and marketing services, the people said, asking not to be named as the plans are not finalised and may still change.
The Uber co-founder is partnering with Zhang Yanqi, the former chief operating officer at bicycle-sharing firm Ofo, and the two have started to work on the project for a couple of months, the people said. If launched in China, it would mark another attempt by Kalanick to crack the world’s second-biggest economy after Uber bowed out of the country in 2016.
CloudKitchens and Kalanick did not reply to an emailed request for comment. Messages sent to Zhang’s LinkedIn account went unanswered.
Often dubbed the “kitchen version of WeWork”, CloudKitchens typically takes over “distressed” real-estate space, equips it with kitchen facilities and rents them out to food and beverage businesses. For restaurant owners, it is a lower-cost way of starting up delivery-only services or expanding to a new location.