Co-Working Space Startup iKeva to Set Up 15 New Co-Working Centers post Raising Fresh Funds

Hyderabad based workspace provider, iKeva has raised an undisclosed amount from Meenakshi Group to fund its aggressive expansion plans across Major Metros in India. The co-working space provider plans to use the funds to expand and set up 15 new centers in the next 12 months and strengthen its robust back-end processes and technology.

Commenting on the development, Monika Misra, Co-founder and General Manager, iKeva said, “This industry has tremendous room for growth, the fresh infusion of funds will help us speed up our business expansion this year, and foray into new fast growing cities. Our revenues recorded an increase by 40% in the last fiscal and the target is to double this growth.”

iKeva opened its 1st center in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad in 2013 and rapidly added 8 centres across 5 major metro cities- - Bengaluru, Chennai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Mumbai, with 2 new centres set to open in Hyderabad in the next three months.

Investment by Meenakshi Group validates the trust leading real-estate players are now placing on the co-working/ flexible work-spaces as a business model. According to CBRE, the co-working/ shared office industry in India has shown a yearly growth of 23% since 2013 and by 2025, 40% of the overall workforce is predicted to work from co-working spaces. This trend has garnered keen interests from the investor community.

“Collaborative work-spaces are displaying remarkable growth and we recognise strong synergies between the co-working model and traditional real estate. As a strategic investor, iKeva’s business model and the sustained growth achieved over the years, combined with a focus to tap into lucrative millennial-driven sharing economy hold great promise.” Mahesh Katragadda, Director of Meenakshi Group said.

Meenakshi Group is one of India’s leading IT Park developers and has an impressive presence in real estate, power, highway projects and property management verticals. Its real estate portfolio includes over 12 million sqft delivered space, about 6 million sqft under delivery, and another 6 million in the pipeline. 26-year-old Meenakshi Group has a venture funding initiative with $10 million commitment meant to encourage new-age enterprises, innovative processes, and promising businesses.

“The strategic equity investment by Meenakshi Group is built on a deeply aligned vision about the future of iKeva brand. The Group’s expertise and experience will add substantial value to our brand as we grow exponentially. Misra added.

iKeva’s co-working spaces range from 10,000- 15,000 sq. ft., and offer a bevy of services and amenities including flexible fully furnished workspaces, high- speed internet, professional team, reprographics, high end IT, and more. With special focus to service delivery and hospitality, these co-working centers foster a community-based environment that promotes productivity and growth.

The spaces at iKeva are available for flexible usage - on a per-seat per-month basis and the packages are customizable to match specific requirements for large teams. The seat prices start from Rs 4000 under flexible plans and start from Rs 8,500 for a dedicated desk space. Options for booking a meeting room or a conference room on an hourly basis are also available. Currently, iKeva boasts 8 live centers and 3000+ members.

iKeva Launches Co-Working Space In Gurugram And Mumbai; Amidst Aggressive Expansion Plans

Hyderabad-based hyper-local co-workspaces and flexible leases startup iKeva has launched 2 new centres - 175 seats secured co-working space in Sector 44, Gurugram’s Premium location and another 165 seaters in Mumbai.

Besides highly functional private offices, dedicated desks, shared workspaces, meeting rooms, breakout rooms, networking spaces and other facilities, iKeva member benefits include an array of discounts and tools which benefit companies and individuals. It also offers to its members a curated list of service providers like CAs, lawyers, recruiters, HR consultants, UI designers, Software developers and more.

These 2 new centres follow Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai centres. iKeva started its operations in 2013 at Banjara Hills, Hyderabad and grew its footprint to 1200 seats and over 70000 sq ft. The company now boasts 6 centres across 5 cities and over 4000 members.

Monika Misra, founder and General Manager of iKeva, is upbeat about the sector and believes co-workspaces are the future of work culture.

Commenting on the development, Misra said, “All the iKeva centres run close to full capacity and we have been profitable. The key reason for our success is largely due to flexibility, followed by strategic location, what we have focus on the word start is to be ‘scaleable’ as we host a strong mix of corporates, startups, and freelancers in our spaces. The Gurugram co-working space has already signed up large enterprises, freelancers, startups and SMEs like Directi Group Company - Zeta, Applify, The Workforce Consulting Group as its members.”

iKeva business model continues to see rapid adoption nationwide, as a place where startups get to learn about business and scaling-up from Fortune 500 companies, on the other side fortune companies gain an opportunity to learn about innovation and agility from startups. iKeva earlier raised funding from Investors including Sateesh Andra, Dr Ramesh Byrapaneni, Dr Srikanth Sundararajan and Madhu Avalur, among others.

The additional centres being planned to be set up in the next 3-4 years are due to growing interest from Startups, SMEs and large enterprises for leasing offices in iKeva spaces.On company’s growth plans Misra said, “iKeva plans to grow to 50-80 centres in next 3-4 years.”

Sector Overview

If we look at the figures of CBRE- ‘Art of Coworking Report’, it states that as office rentals continue the upward trend in India, the total space leased by co-working operators in tier I and tier II cities is expected to be almost 6 - 10 million sqft. by 2020. The demand for co-working spaces can be mirrored with some of its benefits. A report from CBRE states that cost saving of at least 10 - 25% by leasing in a co-working space as compared to conventional leasing in the larger cities of Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune.

It is not only the startup community who is taking the initiative to set up co-working spaces, Government is also equally contributing in it. Recently in June 2017, Commerce and Industry Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman had written a letter to all Members of Parliament (MPs) to consider setting up co-working spaces/incubators for Startups in their constituency under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme Fund (MPLADS). Apart from this, Sitharaman has also used her MPLAD fund to create a co-working space for startups in Mangaluru.