Kishore Biyani moves to a co-working space in Mumbai for his big data plan

Kishore Biyani’s recently founded data science and artificial intelligence company Tathastu has picked up an entire floor with about 375 seats at flexible office major CoWrks’ co-working centre in Mumbai’s Worli locality.

Interestingly, Biyani and his strategy team will occupy the space here and this will be one of the rare deals involving the senior management of a large enterprise. Big corporate entities usually pick up space in co-working facilities for its research, marketing, compliance and more of such functions.

The 12-storey commercial tower, Birla Centurion, in which CoWrks operates its co-working centre, spread over three floors, also houses India headquarters of five firms, including Vodafone-Idea, Hindalco, Woori Bank, Raymonds and Huawei. Biyani and his team will be occupying the entire first floor of CoWrks Worli centre.


“The acceptance level for co-working spaces is on the rise among large corporates. We are managing over 2.5 million sq ft of flexible workspaces across nine cities and 70% occupied space is with large enterprises. We expect it to rise to 80% by the end of next year,” Sidharth Menda, CEO, CoWrks, told ET while confirming the transaction with Tathastu.

Tathastu’s lease contract for these seats at CoWrks’ Worli centre provides for an initial tenure of 30 months that can be extended later. With this deal, the CoWrks’ Worli centre will see 70% occupancy level.

“Tathastu is a new generation organisation focused on AI and data science. We had envisioned a workspace that is technology-friendly and fosters limitless imagination,” said Biyani, founder, Tathastu. “The office is strategically located, is equipped with intelligent technology and complements the culture of speed and agility that we are building for our new technology business.”

Being an enterprise deal, the perseat price in this transaction is lower than the average of ?30,000-?32,000 that CoWrks’ Worli centre commands. According to persons familiar with the development, the pricing is likely to have been worked out at not less than the average across similar centres in the vicinity, and this could mean a deal size of at least ?15 crore per annum.

“Co-working is the most exciting new frontier in real estate which is redefining India’s workplace culture. In terms of location, it obviously doesn’t get better than Worli, which is the cutting edge of the city’s services sector,” said Anuj Kejriwal, managing director, ANAROCK Retail Advisors that acted as the transaction advisor.