By end-2019, just before the pandemic, the market for Coworking spaces was spread over some 30 million sq. ft, with 471,782 seats across the top seven markets in India, per JLL Research data.

In December 2022, the numbers grew to 50 million sq. ft and 750,000+ seats. In the next three years, the co-working space market in India is set to cross the 1-million-seats mark spread over 75 million sq. ft.

WeWork India is the leading provider of flexible workspace solutions with almost 70,000+ seats across 44+ locations in India.

In this episode, we have Karan Virwani, CEO, WeWork India, talking about his experience of bringing and scaling WeWork in India, over the past 7 years.

Karan brought WeWork to India in a partnership tie-up with his family's Embassy Group. Starting business operations in the country with 100k sq ft, WeWork India has progressed to 6.5mn sq ft as of today. Within 6 years, WeWork India has grown from 2,200 members in WeWork Galaxy, Bangalore, to 44 locations across 6 cities in India today - Bengaluru, Mumbai, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, and Pune.

During the episode, Karan shares the ups and downs in their journey, especially during Covid, and how they tackled the situation which helped them build goodwill and scale back faster post things normalized. 

This podcast is for anyone who wants to have an insider view of India’s growing Flex workspace market.

Notes - 

00:00 - Highlights of the conversation

01:34 - Intro to Karan Virwani, WeWork and Global Co-working phenomenon

02:27 - Bringing WeWork to India

09:36 - Why not start under the Embassy brand name and why start with WeWork? 

12:16 - Borrowing the DNA of WeWork Global to India 

13:37 - Scaling to 40+ WeWorks and 70,000+ Desks in India

15:57 - Back into Growth mode post Covid

17:14 - Having multiple landlords for Pan-India growth

18:39 - Initial investment & roadblocks in their journey

24:43 - Plans for WeWork IPO in India

25:33 - Coworking customer segment in India v/s Global

33:16 - Coworking as a culture amongst Traditional & Legacy companies

34:05 - Operating in a certain price segment

36:44 - Partner-led approach during Covid

40:01 - Sector-wise demand of commercial real-estate

43:07 - Hitting $1 Bn revenue in 3 years

43:38 - Coworking as a % of Commerical Real Estate in India