Co-working space provider Awfis secures $20 Mn Series C round from Sequoia, others

Co-working space provider Awfis has raised $20 million in series C funding from its existing investors Sequoia Capital, The Three Sisters: Institutional Office (TTS:IO) led by Radha Kapoor and Temasek-backed InnoVen Capital.

With the fresh funding round, the Mumbai-based startup has raised about $51 million risk capital. In April, last year, it had raised a similar amount ($20 million) in Series B round from Sequoia. Arguably, it was the biggest funding round in the co-working segment in India, and Sequoia alone infused the whole amount.

Prior to that, it bagged $11 million funds from founder Amit Ramani and TTS:IO, the family office led by the daughters of the YES Bank chief.

The latest round also takes the valuation of the company to over Rs 900 crore.

Currently, the startup claims to have 25,000 seats across 55 centres and it aims to reach 40,000 seats across 90 centres in the next 12 months, reports ET.

According to Ramani, the company will expand its operations in news cities especially tier II and follow a managed-aggregation model approach to ensure better capital efficiency.

Started its operations in April 2015, Awfis is a joint venture between Ramani, the founder and managing director of real estate design consulting firm Nelson India, and TTS:IO.

Awfis follows two models. First is a joint venture model by leasing the space and the second is a management operator model, where Awfis works like a managing operator and takes a cut from the revenue.

In FY17, the company reported a loss of Rs 26.22 cr – a 230% increase as compared to the preceding fiscal. However, its revenue jumped by a staggering 1582% to Rs 18.2 crore in FY17 from mere 1.08 crore in FY16.

Besides Awfis, home-grown counterparts such as BHIVE, Innov8, 91springboard, Stirring Minds, and others have witnessed a decent growth and raised funds from investors like Y Combinator, 500 Startups, Blume Ventures, Anthill Ventures, and Facebook.

Last month, IndiQube, a Bengaluru-based workspace solutions provider had raised $15 million Series A round led by WestBridge Capital with the participation of Ashish Gupta, co-founder of Helion Ventures.