Less than six months after , its programme to help early-stage scale in India, co-working giant said that 11 out of 31 firms incubated in Gurgaon have raised a combined of $5.5 million. Startups such as PerkFinance, SpotDraft, Sqrrl, Upgame and others, all incubated out of in Gurgaon have raised capital from reputed venture capitalists, the New York-based company said. “Gurgaon has been running for six months, we’ve seen some really early signs of success where we’ve had direct and indirect influence on the capital some of the startups have raised. Between 11 of the 31 companies in Gurgaon, they’ve raised $5.5 million,” said Aniket Dey, Manager, WeWork Labs. WeWork is now planning to expand the programme to include four Labs in India by April, one in Mumbai which recently became operational, one in Bengaluru and a second Lab in Gurgaon. Labs will also be opened in Chennai and Hyderabad, cities where WeWork plans to expand into next. Apart from aiding startups in raising funding, WeWork Labs cater to all the necessities of early-stage startups in terms of networking, connecting them with enterprise clients to even giving them access to global markets. SpotDraft, a firm that applies AI to extract intelligence from legal documents, for instance is looking to take its product to the US through WeWork now. “Golf is not a big market in India, so Upgame is using us as a base in Singapore to go and sell their product in the Southeast Asian market. But the reverse is true as well, and we just got introduced to three Israeli companies in the last week who want to use us as a base to come into the India market, “ added Dey. Globally, WeWork says it will expand its Labs programme to 100 centres from 49 today by the end of the year. Apart from this, it will also focus on setting up sector specific labs starting with New York next month and take that concept to the rest of its markets, while also working with enterprises to help them setup incubation programmes. “The way to think about WeWork Labs is two fold - companies are paying for desks, these aren’t free desks. We’re also starting to see companies graduating, ie leaving Labs and continuing to work out of WeWork’s space, which is a great business model. But it’s also strategic in nature, because soon we will have this massive global startup community inside WeWork,” said Prabhdeep Singh, Global Head of Operations at WeWork Labs.
WeWork Labs said it has helped early-stage start-ups in India raise $5.5m in the six months since it launched in the country. The company is also working with a number of Indian startups to help them scale up their businesses. The company plans to open three more labs in India by the end of the year.