Mother of all co-working spaces WeWork debuts in India

New York-based coworking startup WeWork has entered the Indian market with the launch of WeWork Galaxy, a 2200 members co-working space, in Bengaluru.

The co-working space will be for startups, freelancers, and large corporates across different sectors that want to make use of the flexible offerings.

“We are excited to officially kick start our operations in India with the launch of ‘WeWork Galaxy’ in Bengaluru. WeWork is a global company with a local playbook and the reason we chose Bengaluru as our first location is because it’s demographically the most diverse city with the second fastest-growing major metropolis in India having a very robust startup ecosystem,” said Karan Virwani, Director – WeWork (India).

The hub is located at Residency Road in Bengaluru. WeWork also plans to open two more Bengaluru centres in Whitefield and Koramangala, respectively. It also plans on expanding to Mumbai and Delhi.

WeWork India also supports an NGO Meghshala, a cloud-based platform for teachers.

Founded in 2010, WeWork today has offices in around 190 locations globally. According to the company, it is adding approximately 10 to 15 locations per month, the world over. It has Microsoft, Bacardi, Samsung, and about 450 enterprises as client members.

The co-working space claims to have doubled the member base with 80,000 members utilising the coworking facilities being offered in 149 physical locations, offices in 188 locations, covering 45 cities across the world.

Glimpse on co-working space in India

Globally, WeWork is the largest platform in the co-working space having attracted over $2 billion in risk capital. The entry of WeWork will give fierce competition to a slew of startups in co-working space including BHive, Innov8, Awfis, Innov8, 91Springboard and several others.

So far, co-working spaces in India have secured about $33.8 million across 17 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.

In April this year, Sequoia led $20 million mega round in Awfis. This is the biggest funding round in this space in India.

In September 2016, CoLife, a network of shared living and working spaces, raised $1 million seed from from undisclosed investors.