India’s coworking sector expected to double in 2019

The coworking space market in India is expected to reach a $2.2 billion valuation by 2022. In 2018, there has been an addition of 15 million square feet of office space and that number is expected to double in 2019.

Amit Ramani, CEO and founder of Awfis, said that there are currently around seven key players in India’s coworking sector, so companies are expected to continue expanding their locations in untapped areas of the market.

About 50% of India population will live in urban areas in the new decade, therefore coworking space demand will go up. Companies are starting to look at tier II and tier III cities to grow their footprint.

Awfis, in particular, has 25,000 seats and 1.5 million square feet across the country and hopes to add 10,000 more by March of 2019.

“By January 2020, the total seat capacity will go up to 60,000 seats and we will roughly add 100-110 centres pan-India, in addition to about 55 centres that we operate now,” said Ramani. “Our prime approach had been to provide quality workspaces at an affordable price (around Rs 9,000-Rs 10,000 per seat inclusive of all amenities).”

Ramani says that there are 35 million customers in small and medium enterprises that occupy Grade B and C offices. Awfis hopes to upgrade them to Grade A offices in order to cater to these underserved areas.

In April 2017, Sequoia Capital invested $20 million into Awfis, which will aid the company to meet the demand of under resourced areas.

Ramani says that the company is doubling its size year-on-year and hope to raise more funds to continue their rapid expansion.