Luckin’s Disgraced Co-Founder Is Back With a New Coffee Chain

(Bloomberg) — As chief executive officer of Luckin Coffee Inc., Jenny Qian vowed the chain she co-founded would have more outlets in China than Starbucks Corp. by the end of 2019. That didn’t happen, and instead the upstart became embroiled in an accounting scandal the next year. 

Qian is now giving it another go. 

With other former Luckin employees, she started a new coffee venture in October called Cotti — short for “biscotti,” which means “cookies” in Italian. It has opened almost 200 venues in more than 80 Chinese cities and has big plans for the future: 2,500 outlets by year-end, 6,000 by 2024 and 10,000 in 2025.