The Indian arm of New York-headquartered coworking startup WeWork has raised $15.6 million from its joint venture partner realty firm Embassy Group.
The coworking space has allocated 100,00,000 compulsory convertible debentures to Embassy in return for investments, according to VCcircle.
The new investment will help the company to fight against the rising competition in the coworking space as it plans to expand into multiple locations across Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi.
In 2016, WeWork signed an ‘operating agreement’ with Embassy Group, a leading office space developer in the country, where the latter would be the master franchisee for a five-year period.
WeWork India is a joint venture between WeWork and Embassy Group. Karan Virwani is the oldest scion of Embassy Group and heads the co-working behemoth’s operations in India.
In July 2017, the company officially entered the Indian market with the launch of WeWork Galaxy, a 2200 members co-working space, in Bengaluru.
In August last year, SoftBank closed a combined $4.4 billion investment in the company, including $3 billion into WeWork directly, via primary and secondary shares, and $1.4 billion invested into three subsidiaries in China, Japan, and Pacific businesses.
Last September, it opened one centre in Mumbai and an additional one in Bangalore. The company today is present in three Indian cities, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi-NCR.
A few months after the launch in India, the company faced some internal conflict. Following the rift, its Indian lead Juggy Marwaha quit the company in October. According to media speculations, Marwaha took an exit as the New York-based startup wanted a greater autonomy over the domestic operations.
Founded in 2010, the coworking space has offices in around 190 locations globally. As per the company, it’s adding approximately 10 to 15 locations per month globally. It has Microsoft, Bacardi, Samsung, and about 450 enterprises as clients.
It claims to have doubled the member base with 80,000 members utilising the coworking facilities being offered across 149 locations, offices in 188 locations, covering 45 cities worldwide.
