The ever-growing popularity of ‘cool’ coworking space

Pocket friendly places

Started a new company, on a shoestring budget but need a fancy office with all the amenities? Then coworking spaces is what you’re looking for. The popularity of coworking setups is growing in India with WeWork opening its offices all across the country. Innov8, Awfis, SmartWorks and CoWrks are some of the well-known names and now Oyo has jumped into the fray with OYO Workspaces. (Pic: Innov8/Facebook)

A natural draw for all

Co-working spaces are a natural draw, enticing startups and even big companies looking for flexible office space. Many feel with India becoming the third-largest startup hub in the world and the second-largest freelancer workforce in the world, there is a huge potential demand for co-working spaces in the country. The market is huge and expanding. Currently, 46 per cent of India’s workforce is millennials looking for tech-smart offices. They embrace collaboration opportunities, giving a window to co-working players to expand. (Text: Mamta Sharma/ET Contributors) (Pic: Awfis/Facebook)

A flexible place to work

The idea of flexible workplaces has evolved over the year. Over the past one and half years, the co-working ecosystem has undergone massive changes. Co-working is no longer perceived as a new-age workplace practice, suitable only for startups and SME. The office rental costs continue to rise across business districts and co-working platforms across the board see great opportunity for the sector to generate profit from rising demand for flexible, innovative and collaborative workspace designs. The demand for these spaces has been propelled by a burgeoning shared and gig-based economy, startups looking for cost-effective workspaces and even large corporates looking to expand operations across new markets in an inexpensive manner. (Text: Mamta Sharma/ET Contributors) (Pic: SmartWorks/Facebook)

WeWork and its growth story

One of the companies leading the co-working space segment is WeWork. In two years the company has got 21 locations in India and the latest coming up in Noida, the US-based co-working giant recently renamed the We Company, is showing how the popularity of co-working spaces in growing. The startup is all set for its initial public offering even as it revealed a net loss of $690 million in the first six months of this year. (Pic: WeWork/Facebook)

How ‘cool’ are these amenities

Another co-working space, GoWork, owns its campuses and doesn’t rent them. Co-working spaces membership fees vary based on the type and amount of services availed by the users and can be collected on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. The amenities provided here can include local businesses like local gyms, technical equipment providers, caterers, etc. (Text: Mamta Sharma/ET Contributors) (Pic: GoWorks/Facebook)

Meet the newest Unicorn

A newly-minted unicorn, Knotel, wants to give WeWork a run for its money. The coworking startup raised $400 million at a valuation that catapults the startup to unicorn status. One key difference between the startup and WeWork is that Knotel only counts large companies such as Starbucks Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., AT&T Inc. and BP Plc as clients. Founded in 2016, Knotel spans more than 4 million square feet of flexible workspace. Its leases have a weighted-average term of more than two years and a cohort of more than 100 desks. (Text: Bloomberg) (Pic: Knotel/Facebook)

About Smartworks: 

Smartworks is India’s largest provider of agile workspaces, with a footprint of 2.8 million sq. ft. across 23 locations in 9 cities (Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune) catering to more than 600 organizations across large enterprises, SMEs and start-ups. Founded in April 2016, Smartworks is redefining the Indian office experience by focusing on design, hospitality, technology and customer delight experience. Smartworks is also the only Indian agile workspace provider to have become profitable in India.

Central to this ambition is the company’s motto, ‘Workspaces that work for you’, with the vision of creating the perfect environment by just not building communities, but also ensuring their member employees are productive in the workplace.

For more information, log in to www.smartworksoffice.com

Media Contacts:

Anita Sharma
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: +91 96507 88255