WeWork India Eyes $200 Million Funding, Aims 1 Lakh Co-Working Seats By 2020

WeWork India, a co-working spaces provider majority held by Embassy Group, will raise $200 million by December to fund its expansion plans.

The startup expects to be profitable at the entity-level in one year, WeWork India CWeO Karan Virwani said Thursday.

The deferment of We Co.'s initial public offering will not have an impact on the co-working startup’s India arm, Virwani said, as the company has already invested Rs 1,300 crore, including Rs 1,000 crore as equity, in this business and will continue to infuse more for growth.

“There is lot of speculation about WeWork India business. We still believe in WeWork brand. India business is really growing well. Embassy Group is bullish about the co-working sector and we continue to expand,” he said.

WeWork India has 26 operational co-working spaces—including nine in Bengaluru, 10 in Mumbai, six in Gurugram and one in Pune—enough to accommodate about 46,000 executives. Each desk is available for Rs 5,000-40,000 per month.

"We are targeting 100,000 desks/seats by end of the next year. In order to fund this expansion plan, we plan to raise $200 million by the end of this year from foreign and domestic investors," Virwani said.

WeWork India will soon enter Noida and Hyderabad markets. It has taken on lease over 3 lakh square feet of office space to open three co-working centres comprising nearly 3,900 seats in Noida.

According to the ‘CWeO’, the company has achieved profitability at the centre level and expects to earn profit at the entity-level over the next 12 months. WeWork India is an independent entity with the right to execute its business in India and it pays a management fee to the American firm.

Last week, Embassy Group said there would be no impact on WeWork India operations due to the deferment of the WeWork IPO in the U.S. The IPO was postponed a week after the SoftBank Group Corp.-backed startup removed founder Adam Neumann as its chief executive officer.

"WeWork India, which is wholly owned and funded by Embassy Group, is our big bet in this space. WeWork India is a strategic long-term play for Embassy Group and its performance has exceeded our expectations this year," an Embassy Group spokesperson had said earlier.

Bengaluru-based Embassy Group, a major player in Indian commercial real estate that launched India's first REIT earlier this year, had partnered U.S.-based WeWork in 2016 to enter into co-working business.