Shared office space provider WeWork has secured an additional $3 billion (€2.65 billion) in funding from Japan’s SoftBank Group, according to an investor presentation seen by Reuters.
The latest funding was in the form of a warrant, under which SoftBank will pay WeWork $1.5 billion on January 15th and the remaining on April 15th.
WeWork in July said it had raised $500 million from investors, including Temasek Holdings and SoftBank Group.
SoftBank, which runs the world’s biggest private equity fund was in discussions to buy a majority stake in WeWork, a source told Reuters in October.
New York-based WeWork leases office spaces and rents them out to individuals and startups, and has said it hopes to boost its membership in China to one million by 2021.
The company has one office open in Dublin with a further three in the planning.
In its first ever release of financial results in August, the privately held company said its net losses jumped to $723 million over the first half of 2018 from $154 million a year earlier.
The SoftBank Vision Fund has investments in several startups that include US ride-services group Uber Technologies.
The loss-making startup WeWork and the Japanese company are closely entwined, with hundreds of SoftBank staff using space at the two companies’ Japanese joint venture. – Reuters
