Awfis Space Solutions, a leading co-working provider in India, has gone public, leveraging its innovative profit-sharing model. Chairman Amit Ramani highlights investor confidence, growth in Tier II cities, and the rising demand for flexible workspaces as key drivers behind the company’s expansion, despite challenges posed by the pandemic and global competitors.
Awfis Space Solutions, a leading co-working and flexible office space provider, has successfully gone public, becoming the first company in India’s co-working sector to do so. According to Chairman and Managing Director Amit Ramani, this move was driven by strong investor confidence and Awfis’s unique profit-sharing model, which has set the company apart from global competitors.
“From our standpoint, we were always one of the first. We perfected the managed aggregation model, a profit-share system, which had never been done in co-working before—it was only seen in hospitality. We did it at scale,” Ramani said during TechSparks Bengaluru. This innovative business model has enabled Awfis to grow rapidly, with over 200 locations 130 operating under the profit-share arrangement.
Despite the global downturn in the co-working sector, exacerbated by the collapse of WeWork, Awfis remained resilient. “Everybody felt the sector had lost its flavour because the global players went bust. But we remained focused, and we’ve shown that the co-working model is sustainable,” Ramani explained. Investor confidence in Awfis has remained strong, a key factor that encouraged the company to go public.
The pandemic posed significant challenges to the co-working industry, but Awfis adapted to the evolving market needs. “The first six months of the pandemic were horrific because if people weren’t going back to work, then you probably don’t have a business,” Ramani admitted. However, the shift toward flexible work arrangements opened new opportunities, as enterprises that were initially hesitant embraced co-working. “We saw a lot of enterprises that were fence-sitters come into co-working, which expanded the industry dramatically,” he noted.
Awfis’s strategic focus on India’s Tier II cities has also been a key driver of its growth. “We were the first ones to go into tier-two cities. I believe that India’s $5 to $10 trillion economy is going to be written in these cities,” Ramani said. He further emphasized the growth potential of cities like Nagpur, Coimbatore, Jaipur, and Bhubaneswar, which are expected to play a major role in India’s economic development.
In addition to its expansion across cities, Awfis has tapped into the growing demand for flexible, on-demand workspaces. “We sell close to about 14,000-day passes and 12,000 meeting room hours every month to non-residents,” Ramani explained, highlighting the company’s success in catering to the emerging “work from anywhere” trend, which gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Awfis’s IPO marks a significant milestone for the co-working industry in India, signalling strong growth prospects in both urban and emerging markets. With a resilient business model, a focus on Tier II cities, and increasing demand for flexible workspaces, Awfis is well-positioned to lead the co-working sector in the future.
