Office sharing venture My Place to invest Rs 25 crore in North India

The office space leasing start-up plans to set up 12 co-working centres in the next 12 months

Office sharing startup, My Place Coworking will invest about Rs 25 crore to set up 12 co-working hubs across North India in the next 1 year. These coworking spaces will be set up in Lucknow, Indore, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and Gorakhpur and will collectively accommodate nearly 1,000 people.

The company recently launched its maiden 85-seat coworking office in Lucknow. A total of 4 coworking centres will be built in Lucknow which will have a total seating capacity of about 500 to cater the growing demand for shared office spaces by start-ups and even big companies who are looking to cut down on fixed office expenses.

“We have already finalised office properties for most of our proposed centres at different cities and the process of setting up these coworking spaces will begin soon,” , My Place Founder & CEO Vinayak Nath told Business Standard.

According to realty consultant CBRE, working place lease by companies providing flexible workplace rose 52% to 4.6 million square feet (sq ft) during the first half of 2019 across 7 major cities on rising demand from start-ups and corporates. The leasing of office space stood at 3 million sq ft in January-June 2018 and 8.3 million sq ft for entire previous year across cities like Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune.

CBRE also highlighted that coworking operators were now focusing on tier-II cities as well, including Lucknow, Jaipur, Chandigarh and Goa. In fact, the Adityanath government is keen on promoting start-ups and the culture of coworking spaces in the state, especially Lucknow. Earlier, the state had created a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore to promote start-ups and entrepreneurial ventures in association with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

Besides, Uttar Pradesh has also proposed to set up a Rs 200 crore venture capital fund to promote MSME startups. The government will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SIDBI in this regard. The fund would give preference to such MSMEs, which are involved in the manufacturing of traditional products and crafts under the aegis of state’s flagship One District, One Product (ODOP) scheme.

UP is also planning to set up one of India’s largest start-up incubator here to provide an enabling ecosystem to entrepreneurs to pursue their innovative business ideas through funding, mentoring and marketing support. The proposed incubator will have representation from the government, industry, angel investors etc for providing a holistic platform to startups.