Co-working startup BHIVE raises $1.2 Mn funding led by Blume Ventures

Co-working spaces are having a good time in India this year. After Awfis secured mega round of $20 million, Bengaluru based  BHIVE Workspace has raised $1.2 million in a fresh round led by Blume Ventures. The round was also participated by actor-director Ramesh Aravind, Meera Reddy (MD of SKCL), and other high net-worth individuals.

According to the Inc42 report, the recently raised funds will be used for pan-India and overseas expansion. The company is planning to expand to other major cities of India and across Asia in the coming months.

This is the third round of funding in the venture. Prior to this round, the company secured $1 million from Blume in May last year. Floated in 2014, BHIVE received seed round from top notch angels including Raghunandan G, Rajesh Rai, Arihant Patni, Sanjay Mirchandani among others.

BHIVE provides equipped workspace with 24×7 access. It claims to cater to over 200 plus ventures in Bengaluru. Currently operational across 10 locations, the company manages over 100,000 sq. feet of space across these locations in Bengaluru.

So far, co-working spaces in India have secured about $32.6 million – apart from BHIVE’ latest round – across 16 deals, as per venture capital intelligence database Tracxn. Tracxn lists a total of 139 co-working spaces, out of which four have already shut shops.

Earlier in April this year, Sequoia led $20 million mega round in Awfis. This is the biggest funding round in the space in India. This round hailed as bigger as overall capital secured by the top 10 highest funded co-working startups in India – combined. In September 2016, CoLife, a network of shared living and working spaces, raised $1 million seed from from undisclosed investors.

BHIVE competes with over dozen of platforms including 91springboard, Stirring Minds, AltF Co-working, Co. Lab. Orate among others.

BHIVE has been looking for funds from quite some time. The raised proceeds set to give impetus to its expansion and existing operations. In March 2017, Shesh Rao Paplikar, co-founder and CEO had written a blog detailing how a ‘large investment fund’ had last year revoked its funding offer after signing the term sheet with BHIVE. The investor allegedly withdrew its offer in the middle of the due diligence process.