Awfis picks up 3 lakh sq ft on lease across 5 cities

01 February 2019

Awfis picks up 3 lakh sq ft on lease across 5 cities

  • Economic Times

The company is planning to set up eight new centres across these five cities taking its total portfolio to 63 centres with 30,000 seats across 10 cities.

India’s largest home-grown co-working space provider Awfis Space Solutions has picked up 3 lakh sq ft of office space in Pune, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Noida and Chennai on a long-term lease to continue its aggressive expansion across the country.

The company is planning to set up eight new centres across these five cities taking its total portfolio to 63 centres with 30,000 seats across 10 cities. Total tenure of these leases range between five year and nine years.

The proposed expansion is in line with Awfis’ definite growth strategy of doubling seats every year to reach the 2 lakh seats milestone by 2021. Currently, Awfis is India’s only co-working space provider with a nation-wide network of 63 centres across 10 cities.

“With over 3 lakh square feet of office space added to Awfis portfolio, we continue to move towards our target of reaching 2 lakh seats over the next 3 years. From around 5,800 desks in July 2017, we’ve now reached 30,000 desks in a span of 18 months – strengthening our position as a market leader in the co-working segment,” Amit Ramani, founder & CEO, Awfis, told ET. “We are now extremely excited to witness Awfis’ next phase of expansion which will enable us to hit the 50,000 seats mark this year itself.”

The company recently raised $20 million in series C funding from its existing investors global venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, The Three Sisters: Institutional Office (TTS:IO) led by Radha Kapoor and Temasek Group company InnoVen Capital to support the growth plan.

Before this, the company had raised $31 million through two rounds from TTS:IO and founder Amit Ramani. In its maiden exposure to the company, the California-based Sequoia Capital invested $20 million in the company.

The latest funding will be to support the company’s next phase of growth. Over the last one year, it has already increased the presence to 25,000 seats across 55 centres spread over nearly 1.7 million sq ft. The company’s additional 8 centres will get operational in 45 days taking total space to 2 million sq ft.

Awfis has grown its revenue four times for the year ended March 2018 from March 2017 and expects to clock revenue worth Rs 170 crore in the current financial year.

“Co-working has truly proved to be a game-changer for the commercial real estate sector in India. Awfis’ aggressive growth is a huge testament to the evolution of this segment – not just in Tier I cities but also in Tier II cities. Our flourishing business development strategy and the positive market response to our centres gives us great confidence to keep doubling our capacity every year,” Sumit Lakhani, chief marketing officer, Awfis, told ET.

While several other co-working space providers have resorted to large hubs, Awfis has preferred to spread across more cities and locations with moderate size of centres. The company’s largest co-working hub with 850 seats is in phase II of Hyderabad’s Hi-Tech city.

The demand for co-working spaces or shared offices is gaining momentum across the country and as many as 13 million people, equivalent to the current population of India’s Silicon Valley Bengaluru, are estimated to work out of such facilities by 2020.

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Awfis leases over 11k sq ft workspace in Kolkata to 3 large corporates in 6 months

13 October 2022

Awfis leases over 11k sq ft workspace in Kolkata to 3 large corporates in 6 months

  • Posted by Awfis Editorial

Awfis, India’s largest network of coworking spaces has leased over one lakh sq. ft. workspace in Kolkata to 3 large corporates in last 6 months alone.

In line with this partnership, Grant Thornton has taken customized set up in Awfis’ Eco Centre (Awfis Gold centre) at Acropolis Mall in Kolkata. Along with Grant Thornton, Awfis has also partnered with Teleperformance, a global digital integrated business service provider, and Conneqt, a leading digital IT and BPM services provider for over 1000 seats at Godrej Waterside and Technopolis centres respectively. In the past, Awfis has also partnered with electronics giant Samsung for over 500 seats in Kolkata.

Flex players are now taking up spaces in malls and hotels to expand their presence as startups, SMESs and enterprises warm up to the idea of shared facilities over owned premises. Given the above, Awfis is taking the collaborative workspace model to newer spaces like hotels and malls to meet the hybrid workspace demand, which has skyrocketed post-pandemic.

The Awfis environment provides a unique amalgamation of different workstyles while providing the company’s employees with amenities and benefits such as meeting rooms, a well-designed collaboration area, a multi-cuisine restaurant, concierge service along with full hygiene and safety measures.

“We are delighted to have a leading establishment like Grant Thornton as a key client. This valuable partnership is a game-changer for the industry where large corporates have realised the benefits of flexible working and are increasingly shifting from a centralized conventional office to decentralized and distributed flex offices for their workforce,” said Amit Ramani, Founder & CEO, Awfis.

Sumit Lakhani, Deputy CEO, Awfis added, “The trend of using flexible spaces in commercial real estate portfolios of large organizations is witnessing unprecedented growth and will become more prominent in the coming future. The flex space take up from large corporates in Kolkata is a clear reflection of the surge in demand that we are seeing pan India across all metros and tier 2 markets as well. Flex players are now being seen as valuable partners in setting up highly customized, efficient and agile workspaces by companies of all sizes.” he added.

Sanjay Mehta, Executive Director- Workplace Enablement, Grant Thornton Bharat said, “The vibrant tech-enabled environment, provides the right mix of a corporate office ambience combined with new-age elements for collaborative engagements and enhanced innovation. This will help improve our people and client experience.”

Currently, Awfis has 9 centres in Kolkata spread across premier and sought-after locations that include Acropolis Mall, Chowringhee road, Salt Lake, IT Hub in Salt Lake Sector V, and plans to add 2 new centres in the next 3 months.

Awfis Space Solutions currently has the largest network of coworking spaces with 131 centres and 77,500 seats across 14 cities.

This story appeared in the 13 October, 2022 issue of Economic Times and was originally published at: Awfis leases over 11k sq ft workspace in Kolkata to 3 large corporates in 6 months

Flexible space demand rises in step with return to office

03 August 2022

Flexible space demand rises in step with return to office

  • Posted by Awfis Editorial

After a gap of two years, the return-to-office arrangement has gathered momentum, with 74% of the occupiers of office spaces looking toward distributed workspaces as a strategy to shift from location-centric to people-centric work facilities, mentioned a C-Suite Survey conducted by Colliers and Awfis.

The report further mentions that the new work way is expected to enable flexibility for employees while furthering productivity gains for businesses and includes a hybrid way of working wherein employees come into the office a few times a week.

The survey was conducted amongst top CEOs and CXOs across IT/ITes, BFSI and e-commerce sectors, with more than 150 companies participating. It mentions that about 35% of the occupiers have seen a majority (75-100%) of employees return to offices.

“Distributed workspace strategy is the way to go for occupiers in this new era of experiential workplaces, as occupiers emerge from the after-effects of the pandemic,” said Ramesh Nair, Chief Executive Officer, India and Managing Director, Market Development, Asia, Colliers. “Flex spaces, in particular, are leading this growth, as occupiers from varied sectors are housing teams in flex centers across cities.”

This shift in strategy is also reflected in the leasing by flex operators. They leased about 3.5 million sq feet of space in H1 2022 across the top six cities.

This story appeared in the 3 August, 2022 issue of The Economic Times and was originally published at: Flexible space demand rises in step with return to office

Awfis elevates Sumit Lakhani to Deputy CEO

21 July 2022

Awfis elevates Sumit Lakhani to Deputy CEO

  • Posted by Awfis Editorial

Awfis, one of the country’s largest network of coworking spaces has announced the elevation of Sumit Lakhani as Deputy CEO of the company. Previously, Sumit was the chief sales and marketing officer at Awfis and has been a crucial part of the company since it’s inception in 2015.

Lakhani has been instrumental in building the company from the ground up. He’s played a key business role, not limited only to sales and marketing. With his keen interest and acumen in finance and strategy, he has also been in the forefront of delivery, revenue generation and maximizing operational excellence. In his new role, Sumit will be responsible for all facets of the company’s investor relations, FP&A along with the existing responsibility of sales and marketing.

“Awfis and will continue to strive to further enrich the experiences for our existing community and scale towards greater heights. Awfis is redefining the future of work that focuses on creating a flexible, dynamic, and collaborative workplace environment for all its stakeholders and I am delighted to be a part of this journey.” said Lakhani.

Amit Ramani, Founder & CEO, Awfis said, “With his demonstrated ability to balance operational excellence with financial and marketing discipline, Sumit will provide instrumental leadership and direction to Awfis. I am confident Sumit will continue to drive innovation and growth for Awfis in his new role.”

Till date, Lakhani has successfully led various rounds of fund-raise and his zealous commitment to transform Awfis from a coworking network to a complete workplace solution platform.

This story appeared in the 21 July, 2022 issue of The Economic Times and was originally published at: Awfis elevates Sumit Lakhani to Deputy CEO