WeWork India, a co-working company, said on Thursday that it has taken 3.62 lakh square feet office space on lease in Bengaluru as part of its expansion strategy in response to increased demand for flexible workspace.
WeWork Global, headquartered in New York City, entered the Indian market in 2017 through a partnership with Bengaluru-based Embassy Group. WeWork India currently offers 40 sites in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, totalling over five million square feet.
The firm said in a statement on October 6 that it has taken on lease 3.1 lakh square feet at Kalyani Roshni Tech Hub and 52,000 square feet at Embassy One. Kalyani Roshni Tech Hub, which is set to open in December this year, is located on Outer Ring Road and has over 5,000 workstations distributed across eight storeys.
The Embassy One building on Bellary Road is strategically placed between two main business districts and has a capacity of approximately 600 workstations spread across two levels. The company has entered into an operator model at Embassy One. Kalyani Roshni Tech Hub, on the other hand, has been leased in conjunction with real estate business Kalyani Group.
”As India Inc marches towards a hybrid working model, flexibility has become paramount for today’s workforce,” said Arnav S. Gusain, Head of Real Estate — Product and Procurement at WeWork India.
According to a Colliers India report, gross office space lease increased 97 percent from January to September to 40.6 million square feet across six major cities, up from 20.6 million square feet the previous year.
The report suggested that office space absorption in six cities — Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune — might exceed 50 million square feet by 2022.
Co-working operators account for a sizeable portion of overall office space leasing in these six locations.
Karan Virwani, CEO of WeWork India, stated earlier this year that the firm became profitable for the first time during the January-March 2022 period, with a profit of Rs 25 crore at the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) level.
Virwani said that the company’s revenue was Rs 250 crore during the first quarter of this calendar year. “We expect Rs 1,000 crore revenue in 2022 calendar year,” he said, adding that the firm had posted a revenue of Rs 750 crore in the 2021 calendar year.
WeWork India had raised Rs 200 crore in stock and loans from investors last year to expand its operations. WeWork Global invested $100 million in WeWork India in June of last year.
(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
