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Now, hire an office space for the price of pizza.
Targeted at nimble and sprouting start-ups across the country, Awfis Space Solutions has launched a mobile-based application to book office space with Wi-Fi and other basic facilities at ₹300-500 a day in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Promoted by Radha Kapoor, daughter of Rana Kapoor co-founder of YES Bank and emerging entrepreneur Amit Ramani, Awfis provides 1,500 office cabins, table space and meeting rooms for as low as one hour to 11 months across seven centres in three cities. The promoters have made an initial investment of ₹65 crore and plan to enhance capacity to 3,500 seats by March.
The company has drawn plans to set up 10,000 seats across 60 centres in Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata by end of this year. It plans to raise $40-50 million (about ₹330 crore) by the end of next year to fuel growth.
Awfis has also tied up with Trident, Hyatt and Lemon Tree to list 100 meeting rooms at select locations on its platform.
Speaking to BusinessLine Ramani, CEO and Co-founder, said the just-in-time office space concept has already received good response with 12 start-ups in Bengaluru hooking in through Awfis.
“In fact, some of the venture capitalists before investing are insisting the start-ups to use our services as they do not want them to splurge capital in deposit, rentals and maintenance of own office space at the initial stage,” he added.
This apart, he said, Awfis is also in talks with top insurance company and audit firm to lease out space for their marketing staff.
It has also signed strategic partnership to provide allied services such as accounting, legal, recruitment, payments, web services, mail management, healthcare and insurance.
Interestingly, Ramani said about 60 high networth investors, who invested in real estate boom have approached Awfis for partnership as it assures steady return for them.
“Unlike other office space providers, we do not insist on one year rental agreement or take any security deposit in advance. With the planned 10,000 seats, our business has the potential to generate revenue of ₹10 crore a month and break-even with 40 per cent occupancy,” he said.
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