Luckin Founder’s New Meal Kit Startup Has a Familiar Business Model

The co-founder and former chairman of Luckin Coffee Inc. plans to expand his new food and beverage industry startup using a similar business model and some of the same team as the chain that was rocked by an accounting fraud scandal.

The planned expansion of A-Bite Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd. marks Lu Zhengyao’s shot at becoming a force in a high-growth market that has investors’ mouths watering, even as he remains under the shadow of Luckin, whose fraud scandal revealed in 2020 got him booted from the helm of the company and the one-time Starbucks challenger kicked off the Nasdaq.