IWG GoFloaters launches restaurant, caf&eacute; co-working model in India

The on-demand workspace platform GoFloaters has partnered with cafes and restaurants to develop a shared economy co-working model. The start-up, which approaches co-working as a service industry rather than a real estate enterprise, works with partners to expand their presence through strategic expertise and the use of its brand without owning or operating any of the spaces in question. GoFloaters currently oversees a community of more than 2,000 users across the four Indian cities in which it operates, and aims to raise funds by 2020.

GoFloaters have partnered with the finest of cafes, restaurants, shared offices, meeting and event spaces across the city and can sustainably provide spaces on-demand

GoFloaters is a first of its kind on-demand work and meeting space startup in India that helps hundreds of early-stage start-ups, freelancers, SMB's, Independent professionals, solopreneurs, digital nomads, remote workers, media professionals, YouTubers, mompreneurs, sales and enterprise teams to find affordable plug-and-play work, meeting & event spaces across Chennai, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, and Hyderabad.

GoFloaters with its disruptive innovation, solves the basic problem faced by people to get affordable, flexible spaces to work, meet, conduct an event closer to their preferred location and not struggle along with the traffic and strain. Users can find spaces on the GoFloaters app – Android & iOS. Once the user chooses the space on the app, the business owner confirms its availability after which the user can make a payment for space and go use it. Their workspaces are extremely affordable for the new-age workforce which wants to make smarter and flexible choices.

It all began in late-2017 when Shyam Sundar Nagarajan, Founder of GoFloaters, was looking for spaces to hold his business meetings without having to shell out Rs. 400 to 500 over food or beverage to occupy a seat in the café. That's when he realized the importance of such meetings & workspaces without any obligation of ordering food or paying for any amenities. Within a few months of starting up, Srivatsan Padmanabhan joined GoFloaters as a co-founder to get the ball rolling. And this gave birth to the ‘Space Brand' GoFloaters. GoFloaters has partnered with the finest of cafes, shared offices, meeting and event spaces for coworking & networking. A great degree of attention is given to the women workforce.

“By helping cafes and restaurants to monetize space and time as against just the food and by making use of underutilized spaces and making it available for others to use on a shared economy model, we are creating a positive impact at two different levels – for the workforce and for the space owners. We are an ‘asset-light model'; that is, we don't own or operate any of the spaces. We channelize this through our partners who own/lease and manage the space while we extend & spread their presence with strategic expertise, business model, technology platform and our brand to reach a wider audience. The next 10 years are going to be game-changers for the global coworking market. Companies have begun to see coworking as a service than pure real estate – buying, selling, rentals or leasing or tech industry. The market for on-demand workspaces is going to grow exponentially with the exponential growth of entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and freelancers." says Shyam Sundar Nagarajan, Founder of GoFloaters

The GoFloaters community of users is 2000+ across the 4 cities that they operate in. This number is growing at a rapid rate. Their spaces provide a relaxed, conducive productive environment at the most economical rates. They have start-ups grown in their spaces, entrepreneurs who use it for regular meetings, artists who organize workshops & training, medical practitioners who use their spaces for consulting, students who use it for group study and the list goes on.

“We are constantly on the lookout to provide more value to our members. We are well on our way to build a very strong ecosystem of partners. Some of the partnerships we have closed in the recent past include Google, Amazon AWS, Uber, Udemy, RazorPay, and HubSpot. We would continue to have a sharp focus on community events & knowledge sharing initiatives that cut across various segments of our community members," adds Shyam Sundar Nagarajan, Founder of GoFloaters.

Currently bootstrapped, they are looking to accelerate their growth and penetrate other markets across India including tier 2 cities. While they are talking to some investors, they will be looking to raise funds by 2020. They are working very closely with their space partners on newer ways to open up their spaces and create more opportunities for monetization.

GoFloaters is creating a lucrative model for the existing ecosystem with simple monetization systems and processes. As the numbers grow, GoFloaters will continue to strengthen its position with its model of affordable on-demand workspaces.





