Renowned developer Puravankara and Bharti realty leased 2.1 lakh sq.ft office space to CoWrks. These huge land parcels are located in two IT cities that are Bengaluru and Gurugram and this land ownership is a part of company’s expansion policy as an official of CoWrks said that they estimate four times to reach 65,000 seats by 2020.
CoWrks is a firm established by the Bengaluru-based Menda family who is also the owner of realty firm RMZ group. The company will have 14 centres operational in five major cities in October which will include 15,000 seats in about 1.5 million sq. ft. area.
Sidharth Menda, the founder and CEO of CoWrks said that the company aims to reach 23 co-working centres, comprising 2.5 million sq. ft. space and 25,000 seats, by March 2019 and are hopeful to have 60-80 centres with 65,000 seats spread over 6 million sq. ft. in 2020. CEO Menda was also quoted saying, “We are expanding rapidly as there is a huge demand for co-working space in India not only from startups but also large corporates.” He further said that the company has taken on lease 70,000 sq. ft. office space in Delhi’s Aerocity locale from Bharti Realty and another 1.4 lakh sq. ft. from the Puravankara group in Bengaluru.
Apart from having office spaces in Bengaluru and NCR, the company also has centres in Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The CoWrks plans to open a facility in Pune as Sidharth Menda, the company CEO was quoted saying, “As a relatively young venture, we already have achieved a phenomenal 250 percent growth in less than two years.”
On the shared office space market, he said traditional offices are undergoing a paradigm shift and companies are focusing on building communities, thereby making co-working spaces a preferred option.
Menda also said that there is a rapid increase in demand for co-working space from freelancers, entrepreneurs, SMEs and large enterprises who are constantly looking for workspaces that provide premium amenities, networking opportunities for business growth and helps them stay connected to their clients across the country and thus the industry is expected to grow at 40-50 percent this year and co-working spaces are flourishing across the country.”
CoWrks the Indian firm competes with Regus, WeWork, Awfis, Smartworks and Skootr among others.