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June 4, 2026
CC's Bet
Is it Luck or is it just Coffee?
Luckin Coffee, founded in 2017 by owners Jenny Qian and Charles Lu, called Luckin Coffee a ‘new retail tech company’. With an unprofitable operational cost, inconsistent customer loyalty and a promise to be profitable, the incentive to fabricate was damning.
At the time of Luckin Coffee’s rise, the general market analysis of the Chinese coffee Industry was inconsistent in price, convenience and quality.
Focusing on targeting customers. They used heavy discounts and mass store openings. Opening 5.2 stores per day at its peak, losing about 44% per cup- they entered a “growth-at-all-costs blitzscaling phase”.
On January 15 2020, Centurium Capital successfully cashed out $50 per American Depositary Share (ADS) worth $232M and 21 days later, an anonymous article exposed Luckin Coffee’s $310M lie.
After denying the article, on March 27th 2020, they appointed two new ‘independent directors’ to the board. 5 days later, they released a document addressing 'internal management' fabricated $310M in sales in Q2 to Q4 in 2019.
The stock dropped by 76% and trading came to a halt.
In 2021, Centurium Capital bought out its controlling shares at a 87% discount for $6.50 per ADS worth $240M, then in 2022, led a consortium purchase of 383 million Class A shares. After restructuring Luckin Coffee, it’s now worth $9.4B with 33,596 stores globally.
So, just like coffee, timing is everything.