Coworking and co-living spaces

Renting a desk or a bed, by the day or by the month

A graduate who moves to Bengaluru for a first job often starts in a PG, a paying-guest room rented by the bed. A freelancer may rent a desk in a shared office by the day. Neither signs a long lease. Many Indians now rent space this way, in small units and for short periods. The industry calls it flexible space.

The kinds of flexible space

Coworking

a shared office where a person or a small team rents desks by the day or month.

Managed offices

a whole office that an operator sets up and runs for one company.

Co-living

furnished rooms in a shared house, with cleaning, Wi-Fi and often food included. It is the organised version of the PG.

Student housing

beds or rooms near a university.

Short-term rentals

furnished apartments rented for a few days or weeks.

Who rents what: desks and offices (myHQ by ANAROCK, BHIVE Workspace), beds and rooms (The HelloWorld, GharPayy, University Living), short stays (Silkhaus, Minoan), and warehouse space rented the same way (Cargoz.com).

How the business works. An operator usually takes a whole building, or a floor, on a long lease from its owner. It furnishes the space, then rents it out in small units at a higher price for each unit. Some operators share the income with the owner instead of paying rent. Either way, the operator earns only when the space is full. An empty desk or bed earns nothing, so occupancy, the share of space that is rented, is the number every operator watches.

Two kinds of companies. Operators run the space themselves. Marketplaces don't run any space. They list the spaces of many operators and take a fee on each booking.

How flexible space earns: the operator takes a building on a long lease, or shares its income with the owner, furnishes it and rents it out in small units at a higher price for each. It earns only when the space is full. A marketplace runs no space and takes a fee on each booking.

Why software matters. Booking, payment, entry to the building and pricing all run on software. The operators are as much software companies as landlords. Running a whole building is a related business. (More on it in Market Segment 41.2, Property and facilities management software.)

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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Coworking, co-living and short stays

Coworking, co-living and short stays

Desks and offices

myHQ by ANAROCK

with engineers in Bengaluru, is a marketplace. People use it to reserve a desk in coworking spaces across Indian cities, by the day or month. It has the most job postings in this Market Segment.

BHIVE Workspace

is an operator. It runs managed offices and coworking spaces in Bengaluru.

Beds and rooms

The HelloWorld

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs co-living houses and student housing.

GharPayy

in Bengaluru, and University Living, in Delhi, are two more companies in this area.

Short-term rentals

Silkhaus

with engineers in Bengaluru, manages furnished short-term rentals for their owners. (More on it in Market Segment 29.4, Hotel management and revenue software, in Industry Vertical 29, Travel tech.)

Minoan

with engineers in Delhi, works with short-term rentals in a different way. It lets guests buy the furniture and products they used during their stay. (More on it in Market Segment 27.1, E-commerce storefront, checkout and search tools, in Industry Vertical 27, Retail tech.)

One company covered mainly in another Market Segment rents out a different kind of space:

Cargoz.com

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs a marketplace of warehouse space. (More on it in Market Segment 30.2, Warehouse management systems (WMS) and warehouse robotics, in Industry Vertical 30, Supply chain and logistics.)

The room priced by the night.

Flexible space is a desk, a bed or a bay in a warehouse. Software now prices it and fills it the way hotels do, with prices that move with demand. This is called dynamic pricing. The operators here compete on how well their software fills their space. The difference between flexible housing and a hotel is becoming a matter of software.

That is flexible space: desks, beds and rooms rented in small units for short periods. The operator earns only when the space is full, so the software that fills it is central to the business.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What proptech companies hire for.

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