Automated Parking App Park+ to Offer Next-Gen Parking Solutions for Managed-Office Provider Smartworks

Park+, India's leading provider of automated Smart Parking solutions, announced that it has been selected by India's largest managed office space provider to Enterprises- Smartworks, to provide a next-gen parking experience in its office campuses.

As a part of this engagement, Park+ will enable campus administration for the flex space provider by automating parking allocation and managing seamless entry and exit of vehicles in and out of the premises. The unique RFID tag affixed on every car will ensure the movement of authorised vehicles only. The solution will help save time where real-time parking slots availability will be visible to members through Smartworks mobile app.

Speaking on the solution, Amit Lakhotia, Founder of Park+, said, "Both Smartworks and Park+ are working towards elevating the experience of corporates and office-goers across metro cities. The users will now be able to check the real-time availability of parking lots on a mobile app, which will help them save time, reduce stress and save on fuel. Also, as more and more people are looking at personal vehicles for a daily commute, corporates are partnering with Park+ to enable their employees to access our 70,000+ parking slots network and ensuring that they are no more constrained by the number of parking available in a specific building. By getting nearby parking on our platform, we have more than doubled the parking spaces available to users at various Smartworks campuses."

Neetish Sarda, Founder of Smartworks, said, "We are building offices of the future, and technology will be the key driver. Our digitally-enabled office campuses are in line with our vision of offering contactless and efficient workspaces to clients. Our association with Park+ will help automate the first touchpoint of our member's daily office schedule – "parking". In addition, it will remove the need for manual authentication of vehicles, improve access controls and further elevate the security profile of the campuses."

About Park+

Park+ is a mobile app-based platform that offers automated smart parking solution for daily commuters, corporates and commercial establishments. Park+ currently provides more than 600,000 customers a seamless and real-time experience for parking discovery, booking, payment and tracking, all of which can be easily accessed through the app. Park+ was founded by Amit Lakhotia, who had earlier played a key role in scaling MakeMyTrip, Paytm and Tokopedia. Park+ is backed by marquee investors including Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners.

About Smartworks

Smartworks is India's largest provider of agile workspaces, with a footprint of over 4 million sq. ft. across 31 locations in 9 cities (Delhi-NCR, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune), catering to more than 400 organisations across large enterprises, SMEs and established startups. Founded in April 2016, Smartworks is redefining the Indian office experience by focusing on design, hospitality, technology and customer delight. Smartworks is also the only Indian agile workspace provider to have become profitable in India.


Central to this ambition is the company's motto, 'Workspaces that work for you, with the vision of creating the perfect environment by just not building communities and ensuring their member employees are productive in the workplace. For more information, log in to www.smartworksoffice.com

Homegrown Co-Working Firm Smartworks to Raise $35 Mn Growth Fund

Mumbai, Aug 25 (PTI) Homegrown shared office space provider Smartworks plans to raise USD 35-40 million in a mix of debt and equity to fund its plans to nearly double the portfolio to 5 million sqft by March, a top company official has said.

The three-year-old Noida-based company is also eyeing a twofold increase in revenue for the fiscal to Rs 320 crore, managing director Neetish Sarda told PTI.

"With 2.8 million sqft, we are the second largest after the multinational Wework which has around 3 million of space under it portfolio.

We now plan to increase the portfolio to 5 million sqft by the end of this fiscal year for which we will be investing close to USD 35-40 million which will be mopped as equity and debt.

"Access to funds from banks and institutions like NBFCs is easy. A lot of private equity investors are also approaching us and we are evaluating them, but we cannot disclose more that at this moment," he said.

Last year the company closed with revenue of about Rs 110 crore with a profit margin of around 10 percent.

"Our pan-India rentals on average are about Rs 10,000 a seat. We are confident of closing this fiscal with Rs 320 crore topline and profit margin of 20-30 percent," Sarda said.

The company, which is currently present in nine cities including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pun among others, is also planning to expand into small towns.

"Our immediate focus is consolidating in these nine cities. Then we will also enter one or two small towns but that is not going to be of significant scale...we will enter with 20,000-40,000 sqft size," he said.

He said the company will continue to focus on enterprises or MNCs as they offer better margins.

It competes with Wework, Regus, Cowrks, Awfis, Oyo Workspace, Goodworks, Gowork, Skootr, Indiuube, Avanta, 91Springboard, Creator's Gurukul, Gohive, Oneculture, Plus Offices and Spring House Coworking among others.

Just yesterday, Thailand-based real estate firm MQDC announced that it is entering the Indian property market by taking on lease 22,000 sq ft from realty major DLF to start its first co-working space in the national capital region. MQDC has opened its first centre-- Whizdom Club--in Greater Kailash-II in south Delhi in a 22,000 sq ft area leased out from DLF and offers 400 seats.

Early this month, Co-working startup GoWork had raised $53 million in debt funding from US-based BlackRock and CLSA Capital Partner to expand its business. Prior to that, GoHive had raised ₹ 2.5 crore from investors to expand its operations. It currently has seven co-working centres in the national capital region.

In this month only, Co-working operator Plus Offices had announced that it is looking to raise up to USD 10 million for expansion abd has invested $2 million to set up two centres in Gurugram.

Smartworks Debuts 'Smart Mitri', An AI enabled She-Robot at its New Bangalore Center

L-R Balaji Viswananthan, CEO - Invento Robotics, Smart Mitri, Neetish Sarda, Founder - Smartworks, Harsh Binani, Co-founder -Smartworks

Smartworks, India’s largest agile workspaces player today launched its flagship facility in Bengaluru. Spread over 3 lakh sq. ft., with 6,000 seats, this is the firm’s largest centre located in Global Technology Park (GTP), Bellandur. 

One of the key highlights of the flagship centre is the introduction of ‘Smart Mitri’, which the company claims to be the world’s first female AI robot. Smart Mitri will be Smartworks’ in-house productivity mascot and will play an influential role in handling the overall office management for the facility, ranging from the visitor system to being a counsellor eventually. This is a first time in the world that a co-working firm is introducing robotic technology to the co-working management eco-system.

This is Smartworks second facility in Bengaluru, the first being in Cessna Business Park. GTP has received a tremendous response, with more than 60 percent of the space having been pre-booked by leading enterprises including Deluxe with 1200 seats, Altron with 220 seats and Playgames 24X7 with 450 seats.

Interior Of Smartworks, Bangalore

The Smartworks facility is a combination of modern aesthetics with the latest technology and a high emphasis on safety, wellness and productivity. Built across seven floors, it features smartly configured floor plans designed to promote employee productivity in a collaborative environment. It is designed to have plenty of natural light that has been proven to reduce stress, improve emotional health, increase productivity, and boost mood. It features fully glazed fire-rated lift lobby doors, marble-finished double height lobbies, green feature wall and fresh air filter for AHUs providing 0.25 Micron filtration.

Commenting on the launch, Neetish Sarda, Founder Smartworks said, “Smartworks is tapping the vast potential of India’s tech capital by building its futuristic office experience in Bengaluru on an unrivalled scale.” Speaking about the distinct edge that Smartworks provides, Neetish added, “Unlike other agile workplaces, Smartworks offers its clients a cost advantage of up to 30 – 40 % achieved through technology intervention that keep operating costs low. Our key focus remains on providing spaces that are modern, technology-rich, productive, collaborative, safe and promote wellbeing so that employees feel taken care of. Bengaluru has and will be a key market for us and we have plans to increase our presence here by ten-fold in the next few years."

With the launch of the Belladur facility, Smartworks now has a total portfolio of 2 million sq.ft. across India. The firm plans to expand their workspace portfolio to 10 million sq. ft. within the next 3-4 years.

The GTP facility marks the way forward for bigger and better technology innovations in the workplace for Smartworks. As the Silicon Valley of India, Bengaluru, has emerged as the Co-working capital of the world. Over the past few years, the city has witnessed massive adoption of the concept of co-working/agile office spaces, with companies and employees finding a co-working culture not just rhythmic to their working style, but also a key enhancer of productivity. As a tech park with state-of-art facilities such as crèche, meditation room, gym, angry man room, sleeping pods, connectivity, vending machines, employee engagement activities, multi cuisine food court and an enhanced user experience, GTP is a much sought after location for enterprises looking to establish or expand their footprint in the city.

Present at the launch of the Smartworks Bengaluru facility was Balaji Viswanathan, CEO of Invento Robotics, a Bengaluru based start-up and the brainchild behind Smart Mitri. Speaking at the event, he said, “It’s a great day for us today, to see our invention come to life! We would like to congratulate Smartworks on their vision to transform robot fantasy and fiction into robot reality with Smart Mitri as their visitor concierge. Smartworks is bringing this reality to life by expanding the possibilities for innovation."

To recall, in September last year we did a story on Invento Robotics in which discussed about how the startup had collaborated with manufacturing hubs in China to give birth to an intelligent robot called Mitra.

“Productivity and employee engagement are big focus areas for every employer today. In the knowledge era, the traditional approach to employee engagement and productivity needs to be turned on its head. Invento in partnership with Smartworks is finding new ways to enhance these interventions. The Mitra AI robots are a key element to making this a reality!” he added.

Smartworks has been on an expansion drive in Southern and Western India since the beginning of this year. The competition of Smartworks include WeWork, Cowrks, AWFIS among others. The firm is India’s preferred choice for top enterprises with these companies accounting for 90% of its seats. It is India’s only profitable co-working space player of its size.

With 20 locations across 9 cities, the firm caters to more than 500+ organizations across large enterprises, SMEs, start-ups. Select marquee clients that work out of its centres include Tata Communications, Microsoft, Arcelor Mittal, Amazon, Carrier, Otis, Daikin, Lenovo, Bacardi, and OLX.

India's Largest Co-Working Space, Smartworks Opens its Second Center in Chennai

Smartworks, which claims to be India’s largest provider of managed workspaces, opens its second facility in the city of Chennai on Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR), bringing its total footprint in India to over 1.2 million sq. ft. The facility at OMR, Chennai is spread across 85,180 sq. ft. with a seating capacity of 1500 seats. With this launch, Smartworks is taking its total number of centers in India to 15 across nine cities namely, Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Launched three months ago, Smartworks` first center in Chennai at Guindy was fully occupied by 10+ companies within two months on the back of strong pre-booking, owing to the increasing demand for shared workspaces in the city. Currently, Smartworks has brought on board several marquee clients, counting Tata Communications, Microsoft, Arcelor Mittal, Amazon,Carrier, Otis, Daikin, Lenovo, Bacardi, Swiggy, Rivigo and OLX among its 500+ strong client base.

Speaking of the launch in Chennai, Smartworks Founder, Neetish Sarda said, “We are excited to launch Smartworks’ second facility in Chennai, a city that is continuously witnessing a rise in demand for office spaces which indicates a healthy and thriving culture in the city. This is a huge accomplishment for us. Chennai is fast emerging as a destination for information technology, outsourcing, manufacturing and enterprises, that has led to entry of global firms here.”

He adds, “The facility in OMR complements our already functional Smartworks facility in Guindy was booked out 100% within two months of its launch which has led to the opening of this new facility in OMR. Smartworks aspires to be the preferred partner of choice for businesses here that wish to create productive, innovative and dynamic workplaces for their employees. We are bullish on the sector we operate in and see ourselves expanding very fast in the next 3 years, targeting 10 million sq. ft. We are also eyeing our presence in non-metro cities very soon.”



In its one of a kind collaboration, Smartworks is proud to announce its association with Episource, a U.S headquartered company with operations across India and the Philippines. In their recent expansion with Smartworks, they have occupied eight of the ten floors at OMR Centre, seating 1,400 of their new employees.

“The ease and flexibility with which Smartworks has helped us expand into this office has been commendable. We look forward to further embracing the unique culture and collaborative work environment Smartworks offers. It is exciting to see the array of facilities at our disposal, from visitor management and IT support to an assortment of recreational activities. Outsourcing our office management to co-working operators allows us to focus on our core competency— medical record review services.” says Sishir Reddy, CEO, Episource.



With millennials preferring to join companies like Episource that understand the importance of a work-life balance, Smartworks recognizes the importance of providing employers like Episource the ability to offer their employees an enriching environment to work in.

The OMR area of Chennai where Smartworks facility is located is the IT corridor of the city. The area also offers a good mix of residential and office complexes, contemporary structures, swanky eateries and a growing number of entertainment zones. OMR enjoys good road connectivity; proposed Metro will further boost the demand in the area. Smartworks’ facility has been designed with lively and welcoming interiors in informal seating, and the facility’s cafeteria, Smart Cafe, creates an ambience where members can relax and unwind before meetings and socialize or network with other member companies. The center also provides a state-of-the-art medical facility that takes care of employees’ healthcare.

Founded in April 2016, by Neetish Sarda and Harsh Binani, Smartworks is reinventing enterprise workspaces to boost employee productivity and to become the preferred workspace of choice for India's vibrant millennials. With demand for customized workspaces growing rapidly across Tier 1 & Tier 2 cities, Smartworks is targeting 10 million sq. ft. of managed office space over the next three years.

Smartworks claims to be India’s largest provider of tailor-made, flexible workspace, with a footprint of more than 1.2 million sq. ft. across 15 locations in 9 cities (Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune) catering to more than 500+ organizations across large enterprises, SMEs, start-ups, and freelancers. Founded in April 2016, Smartworks is reinventing enterprise workspaces to become the best workspace experience provider and the workspace of choice for India's vibrant young workforce.