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June 4, 2026
Manners
PE Bet $4.5B That You'll Get Tired of Luckin Coffee.
And they have Manners while doing it.
PE backed coffee company, Manners Coffee. Built in 2015 as a roadside stall in Shanghai has now marketed the gap between Starbucks and Luckin Coffee. After its initial backing in 2018 by Capital Today before Temasek, ByteDance and Meituan in 2021. It’s now reached a valuation of up to $4.5B.
With Manner's prices sitting at $2.75- $3.85. It’s higher than Luckin's $1.40 and below Starbucks’ $4.50- meaning that PE just backed the middle man of this coffee war.
Following talks of an IPO earlier in 2021.
Founder Han Yulong supposedly clashed with its early investor Capital Today over expansion strategies. It escalated to the point where Han Yulong threatened to leave and start its direct competitor if Capital Today didn’t sell its entire stake of 35%.
Later In 2021, after ByteDance and Meituan bought into Manners. They expanded operations from 8 stores to 300 to now over 2,000+, with 1 in Hong Kong's World Trade Centre - positioning itself in international waters for the first time.
With Hong Kong reclaiming the 'top global IPO venue title' and in 2026’s Q1 outperforming last year’s fundraising by 489%. It's set to be another breaking year.
Some sources close to the deal, have even stated that Manner Coffee is ready to officially file its HKEX prospectus but Maners has yet to publicly affirm this.
While Manner built its empire on low overhead and high volume. The risk is now if PE will try to push it's margins post-IPO and loses its customers straight back to Luckin.
Maybe Manners should have some manners.