The biggest problem a start-up faces is finding an office. Most of them start in ‘garages’ or in residential apartments. If they want to be in the neighbourhood of an IT hub, they have to spend a fortune.
After studying these and other pain points for two years, Monika Misra, a hospitality management executive, set up iKeva, a plug-and-play workspace facility, for groups as well as ‘solopreneurs’ (entrepreneurs who work alone).
Two years on, Misra, iKeva’s founder and General Manager, has amassed 80,000 sq ft of space and three centres in prime locations in Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
The business model
Essentially, iKeva rents out workspaces with furniture, storage, internet, IT support, mail and courier handling, a fax, a dedicated virtual phone number and access to meeting rooms.
“We take big spaces and spruce them up, thinking of every single thing a start-up would need. We are slightly different from an incubator in that we have built a community. The members can transfer their membership to any of our locations. Also, it will be easy for them to expand to more than one location,” says Sateesh Andra, an entrepreneur who has joined hands with Misra.
The clients can also have access to conference rooms, Wi-Fi facilities, power backup and, to top it all, an address in a posh locality. The firm’s facilities are located on the Marathahalli-Sarjapur Outer Ring Road (ORR) in Bengaluru, the IT corridor in Chennai, and Banjara Hills in Hyderabad.
Each of the three centres currently has a capacity of 200 workspaces. “We have a little over 700 members, including 300 start-ups, individuals and MNC teams,” says Misra.
Adds Andra: “Start-ups can be on par with large corporations in terms of space and facilities. They don’t have any cost overheads. And they can scale teams up or down, depending on requirements.”
iKeva offers flexible packages that range in duration from one day to a week to a few months. It charges a monthly fee of ₹10,500 per workspace in Bengaluru, ₹8,500 in Chennai and ₹9,000 in Hyderabad.
“We are about to launch our fourth facility and the second in Hyderabad in a week, at Madhapur,” says Misra.
Expansion plan
Along with the other founders, Misra has invested about ₹6.5 crore in the venture so far. The firm plans to double its office space to 1.5 lakh sq ft over the next three years, in 50 cities, by raising ₹75-100 crore.
Apart from Andra, entrepreneurs Ramesh Babu, Bipin Pendyala, Madhu Avalur and Srikanth Sundar Rajan have also joined Misra in taking the venture forward.