LinkedIn bets big on India

Takes 246,000 sq ft space in Bengaluru, thrice what it took in the same city in 2013

In a prominent office leasing deal, California-based social networking site LinkedIn has taken 246,000 sq ft of space in the Global Technology Park, Bengaluru, owned by Singapore based investor-developer Maple Tree, for a research & development centre.

This is more than thrice the space what it had taken in the same city only three years ago. In 2013, LinkedIn booked 74,341 sq ft of office space in the city's Prestige Technology Park.

LinkedIn is expected to pay around Rs 20 crore as the office complex commands lease rent of Rs 65-70 a sq ft. The space is to be taken in two tranches, the second lot being nine months after the first one, said a source. A mail sent to LinkedIn did not elicit a response. Maple Tree could not be contacted.

Global Technology Park is a 1.6 million sq ft complex, in the Outer Ring Road area of Bengaluru. In the earlier leasing deal, LinkedIn paid around Rs 43 a sq ft. LinkedIn India is headquartered in Mumbai, with two offices in Gurgaon and a technology centre in Bengaluru, the first outside the US.

In January this year, it had announced that Akshay Kothari, its principal product manager, would head the India operations. Kothari replaced Nishant Rao, who recently quit the site to join as chief operating officer of Freshdesk, a start-up.

Within six years of LinkedIn's presence in India, its member base saw a 10-fold increase to a little more than 33 million, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top executives such as Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon, who have their profiles on it.

Last year, micro-blogging site Twitter had opened an 18,000-sq ft R&D centre at RMZ Infinity in Bengaluru. San Francisco-based Twitter had announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based mobile start-up ZipDial, in a deal understood to be around $40 million.

Accordimg to Ashok Kumar, chief executive of Cresa Partners, Bengaluru sess leasing every quarter of around three million sq ft of office space. "Bengaluru is the first choice of any multinational corporation entering or expanding in India. One reason is availability of quality engineering and experienced talent. The city climate and entire eco-system is very conducive for the information technology and IT-enabled services (IT/ITeS) industry," he said.

Bengaluru sees absorption of 13-14 mn sq ft every year and is first in the country in such absorption. The city's traditional primary office demand driver, IT/ITeS, had 57 per cent (7.69 mn sq ft) of the total absorption. Followed by banking, financial services and insurance at 20 per cent, manufacturing at 13 per cent and others at nine per cent.