The funding winter has been hard on India’s startup ecosystem. Firms across stages secured about $7 billion in 2023, down from $25 billion in the previous year, according to a report by market intelligence firm Tracxn.
However, incubators have stood out as the knights in shining armour during these tough times by helping startups navigate funding challenges, perfect their offerings, and understand the target market better.
Today, India is home to more than 400 incubators, with a big chunk emerging in the last three years, as per data by Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)’s Startup India.
WeWork Labs—the accelerator programme by WeWork—was launched in 2012 with the idea of furthering global startup interest, with a special focus on establishing a framework for supporting entrepreneurship with investment and mentorship.
Nearly six years after its launch in India, WeWork Labs now aims to incubate the 60,000 registered startups under DPIIT.
“We have figured out the strategy to scale the programme to a greater number of startups. The 50,000-60,000 startups registered with DPIIT in the metro cities are on our radar,” Arvind Radhakrishnan, Associate Director and Head of WeWork Labs, tells YourStory.
More than 500 startups have gone through the WeWork Labs’s programme so far. Recently, it conducted its flagship event ‘Jumpstart’ for the first time in Bengaluru to open up fundraising and networking avenues for early-stage startups and entrepreneurs.
With the government allocating upwards of Rs 600 crore to incubators under Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, initiatives like WeWork Labs have become more crucial than ever.
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How it started
The programme was launched with the idea of utilising the power of WeWork’s worldwide customer base, especially with startups representing a huge portion of it. Founders, freelancers, and serial entrepreneurs flocked the WeWork office space to build innovative businesses, says Radhakrishnan.
“The natural attraction was to make more meaningful engagement with the diverse talent pool working out of our co-working spaces. We thought why not build value with their expertise and experience by providing mentorship,” Radhakrishnan remarks.
WeWork Labs made its entry to India in 2018 at a time when startups had already become the flavour of the season, especially with big names like Flipkart, Paytm, Zomato, and Swiggy among others setting the tone for the entrepreneurial wave.
However, it went through three stages of evolution. It started off as an incubator by mentoring nearly 60 startups across four office spaces in Delhi, Mumbai, and Gurugram. Through its rolling membership structure (programme open year-round), WeWork Labs enabled early-stage builders using WeWork premises access to mentorship from the community at subsidised rates.
“We conducted webinars and workshops to offer foundational assistance to startups by giving access to WeWork’s growing community. But it was fairly passive,” the executive notes.
In the second phase, during the COVID-19 pandemic, WeWork Labs transitioned into an accelerator programme with a cohort-based model, which lasted three years. The virtual setup allowed for access to a wider audience and provided deeper insights to startups compared to the incubation phase to augment the founder’s journey, according to Radhakrishnan.
Additional insights like product validation, tapping into early customers, hiring mentors, and expanding into newer markets helped startups capture early traction, he notes.
The third phase included access to capital—which Radhakrishnan terms as a milestone—and was formulated following the realisation that finance was the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Through its community of more than 70,000 members, WeWork Labs now invests up to $2,00,000 in pre-seed capital in startups across fintech, retail, proptech, and SaaS sectors, among others. About 20% of the members are closely affiliated with small businesses or startups like Zepto, Sugar Cosmetics, and Fynd.
“With investments, our current model is in the true-to-form acceleration phase to catalyse the startup ecosystem,” Radhakrishnan says.
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The road ahead
Nearly 330 startups are currently undergoing acceleration, and this number is expected to touch 1,000 by the end of the year, according to WeWork’s Radhakrishnan.
“We completed one year of the accelerator (including capital assistance) programme this year and it’s enlightening to see portfolios scaling by leveraging everything we have built over the last six years,” he said, adding that WeWork Labs will focus on the existing offerings rather than adding more bells and whistles.
While metro cities are the centre of attention, startups from Tier II and Tier III markets could emerge as part of WeWork’s thesis going forward.
“Karan (Virwani, CEO of WeWork India) has been excited about WeWork Labs since Day 1. We leave it to him to decide how Labs can add value in areas beyond the metros,” Radhakrishnan quips.
Currently, Labs has an active partner network in several Tier II towns across India. It continues to partner with local initiatives like Digifest in Jodhpur and Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) to enter untapped markets.
(Lead image design by Nihar Apte)
Edited by Megha Reddy
