The Neon Show WeWork In India - The Untold Story with CEO Karan Virwani
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