Architecture, not entrepreneurship, was Amit Ramani’s first calling. Growing up in a family of engineers, he was less interested in equations than in the way physical spaces influenced people. Offices, in particular, fascinated him. They were not simply buildings, he believed, but environments that shaped culture, productivity and business outcomes.
That interest led him to study architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, followed by a master’s degree from Kansas State University and a specialised master’s in real estate and workplace strategy from Cornell University. The combination of design, workplace strategy and real estate economics would eventually provide the foundation for a business idea that emerged much later.
The trigger came during a visit to Chicago. Ramani spent time at 1871, a well-known hub for startups and entrepreneurs, and was struck by the way businesses operated within a shared environment while retaining the flexibility to scale. On the flight back to India, he began sketching ideas for a business that could offer flexible workspaces to companies of varying sizes. Ramani believed there was room for a workspace model centred on flexibility, transparency and convenience.
He had spent over 12 years in the United States, working with firms such as HOK and Bank of America, studying how organisations used space and how workplace design influenced performance. After returning to India, he established and ran Nelson India, the local arm of the global architecture and design consultancy, for nearly nine years. Working with companies across sectors gave him a close view of how Indian businesses thought about office space and how those requirements were changing.
Even then, building a co-working company in India in 2014 involved considerable uncertainty. The first Awfis centre opened in Vasant Kunj, Delhi, in April 2015. It was a modest 70-seat facility with just over 20 members. The centre became a testing ground where the company experimented with layouts, furniture configurations, cabin formats and technology.
The challenge was not merely operational. Coworking itself was still an unfamiliar concept.
A large part of the founders’ time was spent explaining the model to landlords, potential customers and prospective employees. As Ramani puts it, the company was not simply selling desks but attempting to change how businesses thought about office space. At one stage, Awfis even explored ideas such as mobile offices as it tried to understand how flexibility would evolve in the Indian market.
The company initially operated with a lean team from New Delhi. Ramani himself worked from coworking spaces to observe customer behaviour firsthand. One insight emerged early: India was a network-driven market. Customers valued access to multiple locations rather than a single flagship workspace. Another realisation followed soon after. While startups helped create early demand, the larger long-term opportunity would come from enterprises seeking flexibility without sacrificing quality or scale.
Decoupling from Single Desks
Those observations shaped Awfis’ expansion strategy. Instead of focusing solely on individual centres, the company built a network spanning multiple micro-markets and cities. Over time, it expanded beyond coworking into managed offices, fit-outs and design-build services, positioning itself as a broader workspace solutions platform.
Investor backing helped accelerate that transition. In 2017, Sequoia India invested $20 million in a Series B round, then the largest single funding round raised by an Indian coworking company. The firm returned in subsequent rounds, including a $30 million Series D financing led by Chrys Capital in 2019.
Asset-Light Aggregation
By then, Awfis had begun evolving from a startup-focused coworking operator into a business serving enterprises, SMEs and global capability centres. The strategy translated into scale. In FY26, the company reported consolidated revenue from operations of `1,493 crore, up from `1,208 crore in FY25. Its network now spans 257 centres and around 177,000 seats across Tier-I and Tier-II cities. A key enabler has been the managed aggregation model, under which landlords share part of the risk and economics of expansion. According to the company, roughly 62% of its signed supply now operates under this structure, allowing Awfis to grow while limiting capital intensity.
A defining milestone came in 2024 when Awfis became the first Indian coworking company to list on the stock exchanges. The public issue was subscribed 108.7 times, underscoring how investor perception of flexible workspaces had changed over the preceding decade.