The Indian wing of Co-working mammoth WeWork lead by billionaire developer Jitu Virwani of Embassy Group is in talks with global leaders Goldman Sachs and Warburg Pincus to raise $200 million.
This will land the local’s unit to earn a unicorn status nearing valuation of $1 Billion. As per the sources, Goldman, Warburg eye $200 million stakes in WeWork India.
WeWork in India is operated exclusively by Virwani and Embassy under a deal that materialised two years ago. Since, then the co-working pioneer has made significant leaps in the country with 12,000 desks in operation currently, which it plans to double by the end of this year. Additionally, India is the sole big market where New York-based WeWork-valued last at $20 Bn has successfully struck an exclusive deal to operate in India.
Sources have cited that Embassy was in talks with JM Financial on the potential fundraising at an enterprise valuation in the range of $700 million to $1 billion for WeWork India. Moreover, GIC of Singapore too has shown interest in the deal-making and is being considered a contender here.
Interestingly, the latest development has come amidst WeWork having raised more than $4 bn from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank which is eyeing to raise its economic interest in the Indian business.
Embassy and JM Financial did not respond to Pixr8’s query while WeWork declined to make any comments at the time of going to press.
Founded in 2010 by Miguel McKelvey and Adam Neumann, WeWork is one of the heavily funded tech startups that has more than 10 million sq feet of shared office space under its roof globally. Embassy Group headed by Virwani is also considered one of the largest conventional office space developers in the country and its local operations are led by Virwani’s elder son, Karan Virwani.