Dangke Apartment (Eggshell)
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Dangke Apartment (蛋壳公寓, 'Eggshell'), operated by Phoenix Tree Holdings (NYSE: DNK), was one of China's largest co-living platforms. Founded in 2015 by Gao Jing, it rented apartments from landlords on long-term leases, renovated and subdivided them, then sublet furnished rooms to young professionals in major cities. Backed by investors including Tiger Global and Ant Financial, it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in January 2020 and at its peak managed hundreds of thousands of rental units.
02 / Dangke Apartment (Eggshell) FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Danke collapsed in late 2020 when its cash chain broke. Its model depended on renting from landlords at high prices and subletting at thin or negative margins ('high cost in, low rent out'), while collecting year-long rents from tenants via bank-backed 'rent loans' yet paying landlords monthly - a maturity mismatch that functioned only while new tenants and loans kept flowing. Vacancy rates climbed to 24.3% in early 2020 as COVID-19 cut occupancy, and the rental-yield return averaged only about 2%. With 3.4 billion yuan ($520 million) in unpaid debts to lenders, landlords and contractors, the company could no longer pay landlords even though many tenants had already paid a year's rent, sparking nationwide tenant-landlord conflicts and a regulatory crackdown on the sector.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Product or service closed
Caixin Global 8 Apr 2021 (opened): 'All of Danke’s services were halted in late December.' BBC 12 Jan 2021: since Christmas Day all listings removed from the app.
- Liquidation
National bankruptcy notice 16 Oct 2025: Guangzhou Intermediate Court accepted bankruptcy liquidation of 蛋壳(广州)公寓管理有限公司 on 30 Sep 2025 and appointed Guangdong Guojang Law Firm as administrator.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In November 2020, Danke publicly admitted a liquidity crisis (denying outright bankruptcy); thousands of tenants and landlords queued at its offices nationwide to cancel contracts.
- 02
In December 2020, Tencent-backed WeBank agreed to settle affected tenants' rent loans: Danke's remaining prepaid rents owed to tenants would be used to offset the loans, so tenants who moved out could have their loan balances cleared.
- 03
Local governments set up more than 100 reception points in Beijing alone to mediate between landlords and tenants; landlords kept the furniture and Danke's deposits were used against compensation.
- 04
Regulators including six government agencies issued the sector's first formal operating guidelines in April 2021, requiring oversight of rental funds and deposits.
- 05
Danke was delisted from the NYSE in 2021. This record marks a liquidation event in 2025, which could not be independently verified in public sources; the publicly documented collapse dates to late 2020.