Despite WeWork’s rocky path to its initial public offering, its competitors seem to be flourishing.
Knotel, WeWork’s biggest competitor in New York, is finding great success by targeting corporations and large enterprises rather than startups and freelancers.
“It’s about being a high-quality, efficient, enterprise vendor of workspaces for companies,” said Amol Sarva, CEO of Knotel. “We say to the customer—a global enterprise—that we’re going to figure it all out for you and go beyond what any landlord has done for you, from the day you move in until six months or two years later.”
Knotel offers its corporate clients office space on shorter terms, usually between six months and five years, and has clients from companies such as Starbucks, Microsoft, AT&T and more.
Currently, the company operates in 224 buildings across 15 cities worldwide, with about half being in New York City.
Just last month, Knotel received $400 million in a Series C funding round led by Wafra, the investment art of Kuwait’s government. This investment led the company to achieve a valuation of $1.3 billion, making it a unicorn.
Now, the firm hopes to use this investment to expand its footprint in its current markets as well as new ones.
The flexible office model has been criticized as not being viable during an economic downturn, but Sarva believes that his company will see a boom in demand under these circumstances.
