Mubadala takes $1bn stake in China's Luckin Coffee

Mubadala Investment Company has taken a roughly $1bn minority stake in Luckin Coffee, buying alongside the Chinese chain's controlling shareholder, Centurium Capital.

The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund's stake gives it the right to nominate a director to Luckin's board, while keeping an ownership threshold of at least 5% on an as-converted basis. Mubadala has now put more than $20bn into China across upwards of 100 deals since 2015.

A chain built past Starbucks in scale

A billion-dollar bet on a coffee chain that nearly collapsed in scandal six years ago.

Luckin, founded in 2017, now runs more than 36,000 stores and served close to 500 million customers as of June 2026, built on a mobile-order model that skips the counter queue common at Western chains. The company survived a 2020 accounting scandal that wiped out most of its market value and forced a Nasdaq delisting, before rebuilding under new ownership led by Centurium and returning to profitability on the mainland.

China's coffee market is projected to reach $5.36bn in revenue by 2033, growing at a compound annual rate of 6.4% from 2026, according to estimates cited around the deal. Luckin's store count now outnumbers Starbucks' roughly 8,000 mainland China locations by a wide margin, though Starbucks still leads on average ticket size and sit-down demand.

A bigger seat at China's consumer table

The investment adds Luckin to a Mubadala China portfolio that already spans logistics, technology and consumer brands, giving the fund direct exposure to the mainland's most aggressive coffee expansion at a moment when many Western investors have pulled back from Chinese consumer stocks. For Centurium, which took control of Luckin after its restructuring, selling down part of its stake to Mubadala brings in a long-term institutional partner rather than a short-term trading one.

Neither side has disclosed the exact share of Luckin now held by Mubadala, or whether the fund plans further investment in China's food and beverage sector this year. Indonesia's Kopi Kenangan is chasing a similar path, with its founder buying up shares ahead of a planned listing.