Sequoia Capital provides funding for Co-Working space startup Awfis

By Shariq Hussain

Posted on April 26, 2017

Awfis Space Solution Pvt Ltd, a startup which provides shared working spaces, has raised Series B Funding of $20 million (Rs 127 crore) from Sequoia Capital India. By this funding, the total capital raised by the startup is $31 million (around Rs 200 Crore).

The New Delhi- Based startup was founded in May 2015 by Amit Ramani. Awfis provides inspiring workspaces (cabins, desks, meeting rooms) which can be utilised on truly Just in Time basis via a mobile app. The technology platform will enable the users to book the office space which lies in a time period from 1 hour – 1 year. The startup has partnered with leading hotel chains, banks and commercial space owners and aggregated a wide network of high-quality meeting rooms.

Commenting on the startup Amit, Founder and CEO of Awfis said: “Awfis is transforming underutilised real estate assets and providing an affordable and exciting new age work environment for today’s entrepreneur. We believe that this will facilitate a change in preference of the conventional office user from traditional offices to new age co-working spaces.”

Awfis took off with an investment of $11 million in April 2015 by Amit Ramani and The Three Sisters: Institutional Office (TTS: IO), the family office run by Radha Rana Kapoor, Raakhe Rana Kapoor and Roshini Rana Kapoor. The startup plans to establish 100 plus centres with 35,000 plus seats across Mumbai, NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Pune in the next 24 months.

Awfis claims to have a network of over more than 7,500 seats across 21 centres in 8 cities. The startup plans to scale up to 35,000-plus seats across 100 centres in 9 cities making it much bigger than its competitor Regus. the world’s largest provider of flexible workspace solution in India, with close to 10,000 seats.

Commenting on the investment, Abhay Pandey, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors, said, “Awfis is playing on two significant global trends – sharing economy and communities. This being delivered through a superior user experience at a lower total cost makes it more exciting. We are delighted to partner with Amit and team and TTS: IO in this journey.”

The similar entities in the segment are 91springboard which provides co-working space in NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru; Y Combinator-incubated by Innov8 which have their operations running in Delhi, Chandigarh and Bengaluru and InstaOffice which operates in Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Delhi. They are other smaller region firms like CoWork, Bangalore; BHIVE which is backed by Blume Ventures and AltF Coworking in Delhi and Gurgaon. Read more about Indian Startup Ecosystem.

Sequoia Capital provides funding for Co-Working space startup Awfis