BHIVE Workspace, which provides co-working space, has raised $1.2 million in a new funding round, led by Blume Ventures. Along with Blume Ventures, Actor-Director Ramesh Aravind, SKCL MD Meera Reddy and other high net-worth individuals have also participated in this round.
With this new fund infusion, the company is now looking forward to expanding its presence to pan-India and to international destinations also. In India, it plans to expand to metro cities, while Internationally, it plans to start across Asia in the coming months.
Shesh Rao Paplikar, Co-Founder and CEO, BHIVE Workspace, said,
In the last two years, we’ve expanded our co-working space rapidly and currently have 10 centres within Bangalore. We’ve focused on the right mix of hospitality and technology to deliver a superior co-working environment, and have applied principles of lean start-up to achieve operational efficiency. We want to leverage our expertise to benefit more companies and start-ups.
He further added that they are “about to cross Rs 12 crore annual revenue run rate”. He also said that the company is expecting the revenue to grow to Rs 100 crore in a year from now.
BHIVE Workspace was founded in November 2014 by Paplikar and Ravindra MK, as a co-working, networking and mentoring platform for startups that couldn’t afford independent offices. The company is sheltering over 170 startups across its various locations managing 50,000 sq. ft of office space in Bangalore.
It offers a range of facilities that enable individuals and businesses to focus on their work and still have a community driven, vibrant work environment.
This is the third funding round officially announced by the company. In May 2016, the company had raised $1 million from Blume Ventures. Prior to that, it had raised an undisclosed amount in seed round from angel investors Arihant Patni, Arun Narayanan, Raghunandan G, Rajesh Rai, and Sanjay Mirchandani.
In the co-working space, BHIVE Workspace competes against the likes of Innov8 and 91Springboard, which has a strong community and wide presence. WeWork, a US-based shared office space provider, which is valued at over $17 billion, is also debuting in India later this year.
