Awfis raises $20 million from Sequoia Capital

Awfis Space Solutions, a start-up that provides shared workspaces, has raised $20 million from Sequoia Capital India to fund its expansion plans. The startup is currently operating in 21 workplaces across the country, and aims to reach 100 mark in next 2 years, increasing the total seat count from 7,000 to 35,000. The startup, which started in April’15 and opened its first facility in Delhi, is a joint venture between Amit Ramani, the founder and managing director of real estate design consulting firm Nelson India, and The Three Sisters: Institutional Office, a family-run investment firm managed by Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor’s daughters. It is currently competing against players such as 91springboard, Y Combinator-incubated Innov8, InstaOffice, CoWork India etc.

Amit Ramani, founder and CEO of Awfis, said that “The focus is to place smaller co-working centers near the user rather than to have fewer big facilities. We have identified a sweet spot of 350-400 seats per center, where our unit economics works and this kind of scale gives us the best-suited setting for a community-based environment”.

The startup operates with two business models. Either it takes a property on lease typically for a 5-9 year period and invests in its renovation and refurbishment, or it also has deployed a ‘managed aggregation model’ wherein the property owner offers its property to Awfis for no upfront cost and takes a higher share of the revenue.