WeWork to set up new co-working spaces in Mumbai, Gurugram

US-based co-working firm WeWork is ramping up its presence in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurugram to have over 35,000 seats in India by the end of this year.

The company, which has about 12,000 seats across these three cities, is also looking at establishing co-working spaces in Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad next year.

"We have been open for a year and we have grown very quickly. We started with 2,200 desks and we are now over 10,000 members which is pretty amazing," Ryan Bennett, Chief WeWork Officer at the company, told PTI.

He added that by the end of the year, WeWork will expand the number of desks to 35,000 as it opens up more locations.

"We are continuing to grow at a strong pace, we have four locations in Mumbai, four in Bengaluru and one in Gurugram currently. By the end of the year, we will have 5 locations in Gurugram, 10 in Mumbai and 8 in Bengaluru," he noted.

Bennett added that next year, the company will look at establishing co-working spaces in Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad.

Apart from entrepreneurs and startups, companies like Discovery India, GoDaddy, Twitter and Jaguar Land Rover use WeWork spaces in India.

There are a number of players in the co-working spaces category in India, including the likes of Awfis, Innov8 and CoWrks.

Many individuals, startups and even larger enterprises are signing up for co-working spaces instead of conventional office spaces for a variety of reasons, including lower rentals, savings on operational costs and a more flexible work environment.

"Within six months, almost all of our locations are at 90 per cent occupancy. We are putting a lot of money into growth right... We are not competing with co-working spaces but traditional workspaces and real estate," Bennett said.

SoftBank Group-backed WeWork is also introducing an enterprise solution -- Powered by We -- under which its team will design and manage the workspace for a client.

India is one of the fastest growing markets globally for WeWork, even though the base here is much smaller compared with regions like the US and Europe.