India's Data Centre Boom to Drive $5.7 Billion Investments by 2026: JLL

India's data center industry is experiencing a significant boom, with projections indicating that it will attract investments worth USD 5.7 billion by 2026. This growth is largely driven by the increasing demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the need for high computing power.

According to a latest report by real estate services firm JLL, real estate development in the local data centre market over the next two and half years may stand at $ 5.7 billion or Rs 47,373 crore.

The industry is expected to add 791 MW capacity and will require around 10 million sq.ft. of real estate space to accommodate this expansion. The surge in India's data center capacity is fueled by the adoption of AI, which necessitates the development of new data centers capable of meeting the energy, processing, and cooling needs of advanced computing.

Real estate and investment management company JLL has highlighted that Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) are realigning their requirements to factor in AI-led demand, which is contributing to the growth in investments. The anticipated expansion and progression of diverse AI disciplines are projected to create additional demand for data centers, expanding their capacity requirements and advancing their capabilities.

While in 2023, absorption of 147 MW was recorded, according to JLL as usage of AI gains pace, the demand for Indian data center (DC) is expected to be in the range of 650-800 MW during 2024-26.

Overall, these investments are expected to result in additional data center space of 10 million square-foot. Mumbai and Chennai, together, are expected to corner 73% of these real estate. With 4.41 million sq-ft, Mumbai will get over 44% of the new real estate, followed by Chennai (2.89 million sq-ft).

Overall, these investments are expected to result in additional data center space of 10 million square-foot. Mumbai and Chennai, together, are expected to corner 73% of these real estate. With 4.41 million sq-ft, Mumbai will get over 44% of the new real estate, followed by Chennai (2.89 million sq-ft).

While the national capital region of Delhi (0.66 million sq-ft), Bengaluru (0.53 million sq-ft) and Kolkata (0.5 million sq-ft) to get smaller shares, respectively.

This investment is not only significant for the data center industry but also for the digital economy of India, as it is poised to contribute to the country's growth as a major hub for digital innovation and services.

Net Office Space Leasing may Fall Upto 14% in 2020 on Lower Supply: JLL India

Net leasing of office space could decline by up to 14 per cent this year to over 40 million sq ft across seven major cities on estimated fall in supply, according to global property consultant JLL.

During 2019, the net office space leasing rose by 40 per cent to an all-time high of 46.5 million square feet as against 33.2 million sq ft in 2018. New supply rose 45 per cent to 51.6 million sq ft last year, from 35.7 million sq ft during 2018.

For 2020, JLL India pegged net office space leasing at over 40 million sq ft and new supply at 47.5 million sq ft.

JLL tracks office leasing of seven major cities -- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata.

"Despite an expected decline of office space supply in 2020, net absorption is likely to clock a robust over 40 million sq feet mark backed by significant pre-booking  or pre-leasing of space by occupiers," JLL India said.

The net absorption for the year 2020 will be much higher than the annual average for the last five years which stood at 35 million sq ft, it added.

The consultant said that pre-leasing or pre-commitment of office space by corporates and co-working operators remains strong despite the economic slowdown.

"The strong pre-commitment activity is an indication of the intrinsic strength of the Indian office market. Moreover, it bears testimony to the increasing importance of real estate in the business plan of corporate occupiers," JLL India CEO & Country Head Ramesh Nair said.

He emphasised that corporates need to plan for future space requirement, particularly in cities having shortage of quality office space.

"Hence, single digit vacancy markets drive pre-commitment levels with large companies finding it viable to commit to office spaces in the under construction phase," Nair said.

JLL India said that IT-ITeS occupiers account for a majority of the pre-commitment leases across most of the top office markets in India.

They constitute more than 50 per cent of the pre-committed office space in 2020.

"These occupiers require larger floor plates and this type of arrangement becomes a necessity in markets with limited availability of Grade A office spaces,” said Samanthak Das, Chief Economist and Research Head at JLL India.

US-based JLL is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management.

A Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of USD 16.3 billion, JLL operates in over 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 93,000 as of September 2019.

In India, JLL has presence across 10 major cities with a strength of close to 12,000 professionals. PTI MJH

Digital Broking & Co-Working Platform Qdesq Raises Funds from Silicon Valley-based JLL

Silicon Valley-based venture capital arm of JLL, JLL Spark, has invested an undisclosed amount in India’s largest flex-space technology platform, Qdesq. Through this investment, the proptech focused fund has marked its first India focused investment, it said in a statement today.

Founded in 2015 by Paras Arora and Lavesh Bhandari, Qdesq is a digital platform that allows companies to transact flexible workspaces, managed workplaces, virtual offices and individual offices. The company lists India’s largest inventory of available flex spaces in near real time and currently transacts one desk every 20 minutes on behalf of corporates looking to avoid locking themselves into long term leases. At present, Qdesq has approximately 2,200 centres, lists over 500,000 desks in near real time, covering the top 35 Indian cities and has rapidly emerged as a dominant distribution channel for co-working operators like WeWork, 91Springboard, AWFIS, Regus, Smartworks, Innov8 and Oyo.

With this investment, the company plans to invest heavily into the analytics capabilities of its technology platform to allow enterprises to better self-solution their future real estate footprint and to allow commercial asset owners to create viable co-working and flex spaces within commercial complexes.

“The investment in Qdesq taps into the growth opportunity that the flexible workspace segment offers. JLL’s strong corporate relationships across the globe, combined with Qdesq’s technology platform and preferred partnerships with flex space operators, will help us provide a more comprehensive solution to our clients across 35 cities in India,” said Ramesh Nair< /b>, CEO & Country Head – India, JLL.

Demand from corporates, startups and entrepreneurs in India has resulted in a huge jump in the co-working share in total office leasing. According to a JLL study, the share of co-working office leasing has risen to 15 percent in the first six months (January to June) of 2019 from the 8 percent level seen in 2018. The segment has absorbed 10.1 mn square feet of cumulative space since 2017 to the first half of 2019, according to the findings.

“Qdesq sits at the cusp of one of the larg est disruptions in commercial real estate. Companies are no longer interested in inefficient leases with long lock-ins. Businesses are increasingly looking for the flexibility to easily expand or contract their footprint. With their comprehensive inventory of real time availability of managed spaces, Qdesq is able to dramatically reduce the lead-time to occupancy for companies,” said Anuj Nangpal, Asia Pacific Lead, JLL Spark.

As per JLL estimates, currently there are approximately 325 to 330 flexible workspace operators in the top seven cities in India. The study finds that the average size of transactions in the co-working segment increased from 37,000 square ft in 2017 to 52,000 sq ft in 2018 and further to 97,000 sq ft in the first half of 2019.

“The average time it takes to close a fixed time lease today is anywhere between three and six months. In comparison, Qdesq is able to close even large enterprise occupancy requirements within days. Our transaction volumes have been growing over 400 percent year-on-year and, with our shared vision with JLL, the opportunity is to scale the platform across Asia,” said Paras Arora, Co-founder of Qdesq. The company recently launched in the Philippines and plans to be present in most of Asia’s gateway cities in the near term.

Qdesq has solutioned real estate occupancy requirements for a wide variety of clients ranging from super high growth technology companies like Zomato, Phonepe and Zerodha to more established corporates like Bank of Baroda, Nagarro and Hyundai. India is one of the largest potential markets for co-working spaces in Asia, second only to China.

NA Shah Associates and Fortitude Law were advisors to the transaction.

JLL India, Invest India to Run Accelerator Programme for Tech Startups in Realty Space

New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) Property consultant JLL (Jones Lang Lasalle) India on Thursday said it has partnered with Invest India , a government of India's official investment promotion agency, to launch an accelerator programme for supporting those startups which are working on developing technology solutions for the real estate sector.

"JLL and Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation agency, under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, jointly announced the launch of JLL IDEAs," the company said in a statement.

JLL IDEAs is a collaboration between JLL and the initiatives housed at Invest India, Accelerating Growth of New India's Innovations (AGNIi) and Startup India. This programme is real estate proptech accelerator that will promote startups working on cutting edge, disruptive technologies and solutions impacting developers, investors and occupier clients, it added.

AGNIi is the national technology commercialization programme from the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the central government, while Startup India is the government's flagship initiative to boost the startup ecosystem in the country.

"It is AGNIi's constant endeavor to support the ongoing efforts to boost the innovation ecosystem in the country. Through this collaboration with Startup India & JLL, we aim to connect innovators across industries and help commercialize their technology and solutions for the larger good of the real estate sector in India," Prof K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India said.

"India is now the second largest startup ecosystem in the world. With a clear focus to promote innovation in the country, it is the right time for industry to come forward and be a part of the New India story," Invest India MD and CEO Deepak Bagla said.

The proptech space offers limitless opportunities in India and is the single biggest lever to benefit millions of consumers, end users and occupiers alike, Ramesh Nair, CEO and Country Head, JLL India said.

Property consultant's revenue rose 17 per cent to Rs 4,000 crore in 2018-19. PTI MJH

Ecolibrium Energy Raises $2.6M Led by Infuse Ventures and JLL

Ecolibrium Energy, a market leader in Energy Analytics, has announced its funding of $2.6 million led by Infuse Ventures, JLL and an angel investor.

A leading provider of Energy Analytics for industrial and commercial enterprises, Ecolibrium Energy currently services more than 500 multinational clients across various sectors such as Engineering, Pharmaceuticals, FMCG, Utilities, et al.

Businesses across the globe have started to use IoT platforms and energy data for data-driven management, which enhances operational and financial efficiency. Ecolibrium’s Energy Analytics Platform – SmartSense, helps users take crucial operational decisions for optimizing Energy costs and asset uptime through proprietary patented predictive maintenance algorithms, saving up to 15% of energy and asset maintenance spends. Across their existing customer base SmartSense manages, 1300 MW of energy and 12000+ equipments with 100+million data points captured daily.

With this fund raise, Ecolibrium Energy will deepen customer engagement and expand to international markets. The company will also increase its focus deep Machine Learning algorithms for electrical equipments.

Speaking on the funding, Chintan Soni, CEO at Ecolibrium Energy said, ‘With the Global IoT Market estimated to be at $110 Billion, and creating an impact of around $14.2 Trillion, Energy and Manufacturing are going to be major drivers in this industry. SmartSense will deliver value to our clients with very specific recommendations to reduce energy losses and avoid downtime of equipments. Our focus is going to be on creating a digital twin of facilities and assets. Through our patented algorithms we will help businesses optimize their cost of operations and capital deployment for electrical assets.’

Vibhor Dhanuka, VP - Investments, Infuse Ventures says, "Ecolibrium is one of our early investments and we are excited to continue supporting the company. It has developed a strong footprint across industries and geographies over the last few years. With the increasing adoption of IoT and analytics for energy management, Ecolibrium is well positioned to strengthen its leadership position. The present fund raise will enable Ecolibrium to further expand its business as well as provide fillip to its new product development efforts, which will enrich its offering to customers."

Anuj Nangpal, Head – JLL Technology Ventures says, “JLL’s Technology Ventures platform is a dedicated vertical for making investments into real estate technology firms. Our investment in Ecolibrium is perfectly aligned with this Fund’s objectives and fortifies our intent and ability to identify technology outliers in the proptech space. Ecolibrium is at the cutting edge of the technology of energy data, IoT and predictive maintenance, which is an immediate strategic priority for commercial and industrial asset owners. Their technology integrates seamlessness with our Integrated Facility Management platform. We see this as the future of energy management with a huge potential to be exported globally into our client accounts.”

Recently, the company has also been declared one of the winners of the prestigious Ashden Awards - the world’s leading green energy awards. The perfect demonstration of how the power of big data can make a significant difference when it comes to monitoring and optimizing energy use, made them the winner.

Community Services Platform Zipgrid Raises $500K from JLL and 1Crowd

Leading international property consultancy JLL India today announced an investment into Zipgrid, India's fastest-growing technology and knowledge services provider in the community management space. This marks the closure of Zipgrid’s pre Series-A round of $500K. It is also JLL’s third investment by its JLL Technology Ventures platform, a dedicated vertical for making investments into real estate technology firms. The round saw active participation from Zipgrid's current investors represented by the 1Crowd platform.

"The asset management space is transitioning into a managed services model where technology is starting to play a major role,” says Anuj Nangpal, Head - JLL Technology Ventures. “We aim to partner with technology platforms with flexible architectures that can integrate with best-in-class technology tools. Zipgrid’s tech-enabled property and asset management platform offers a seamless experience for residents, society managements and the property managers. This platform is significantly more matured than any similar options on the market, and we are keen to implement this solution in residential and commercial complexes across the APAC region."

Over 35 million households reside in organized communities in the top 50 city clusters in India. This platform represents a market opportunity of over US$ 2 bn and is slated to grow aggressively as such households increase to over 100 mn by 2025. Zipgrid’s service model dovetails very favourably with the strict norms enforced by RERA and also addresses a market opportunity that will transcend beyond India into Asia Pacific with the support of the global JLL platform.

The investment will be used to fund upgrading and upscaling of existing technology and operations, and to deploy a range of collective commerce solutions for individual residents as well as residential communities. Zipgrid had earlier raised US$ 250K from 1Crowd that counts a number of C-level professionals as active members on its platform.

Zipgrid, founded in August 2013 by Kunal Gupta and Jaydip Popat, provides tech-driven services to hundreds of housing and commercial communities. Its platform comprises of a full suite of integrated tools and applications that promote:

• Highly efficient property management
• Community engagement
• Financial as well as legal compliance
• Accounting management
• Compliance management
• Builder-to-society transition services
• Vendor management
• Billing and payment solutions, and
• Records digitization.

Jaydip Popat, Co-founder - Zipgrid says, “We are delighted to partner JLL, a global real estate leader in Property and Asset management services. We intend to combine our technology and management solutions with JLL’s network and understanding of this space to improve living experiences in communities while bringing significant economic benefits to residents. We are also thankful to 1Crowd for their continued support and participation in this round. It is a significant vote of confidence for us.”

Natasha Kothari, Co-founder - 1Crowd says, "1Crowd's start-up ecosystem supports companies like Zipgrid that are using technology and knowledge to bring efficiency and convenience to all. Zipgrid is on a very strong growth trajectory and has made significant progress since the time we made our investment last year. In this heavily fragmented market, Zipgrid has managed to provide systemic efficiency to the housing and commercial communities."