Chagee, a popular retail chain of Chinese bubble tea shops, has filed to hold an initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S.
Chagee, which has been compared to Starbucks (SBUX), plans to list shares on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol “CHA.”
News of the IPO comes as the company prepares to open its first U.S.-based store in Los Angeles, California this spring.
Since its founding in 2017, Chagee has grown to more than 6,400 teahouses throughout China, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Currently, about 97% of its stores are located in China.
In its IPO prospectus, Chagee said it had net income of $344.5 million U.S. and revenue of $1.70 billion U.S. in 2024.
Chagee founder Junjie Zhang created the chain to modernize the tea drinking experience and was inspired by the success of international coffee companies in China.
The nation of 1.4 billion people is Starbucks’ second-largest market worldwide.
Following a lull since 2021, IPOs on U.S. exchanges are now heating up.
In recent weeks, ticket reseller StubHub, artificial intelligence company CoreWeave, and Klarna, a buy now, pay later loan company, have each filed to hold IPOs in the U.S.
