Smartworks Coworking Space Ltd, India’s largest managed office space operator, has filed papers with markets regulator Sebi to raise about ₹800-850 crore through the issuance of fresh shares and an offer for sale.

The company, promoted by Neetish Sarda and Harsh Binani, the son and son-in-law of jute baron Ghanshyam Sarda, respectively, plans to use the proceeds of the IPO to fund future growth and retire debt.

With close to 8.5 million square feet space under management, Smartworks is the largest shared office space operator in India. Backed by Keppel Land of Singapore, one of the selling shareholders, it is expecting to close FY25 with about 10 million square feet of space under management.

The company, which originally started out from Calcutta where the Sardas were based before moving out to Delhi, operates from 13 cities in India.

Bengaluru, Delhi and Pune are the three largest markets for the company. In Calcutta, it manages 0.7 million square feet of office space.

Smartworks has an ambitious plan to reach up to 20 million square feet of space under management in four years and it hopes to deploy ₹300 crore for the same. The issue of fresh shares is expected to fetch up to ₹550 crore.

The shared office space segment with the commercial real estate sector witnessed notable growth post-pandemic as occupiers preferred the plug-and-play model, leaving the headache of fitting out office space and managing it during lease period to dedicated operators such as Smartworks, AWFIS, WeWork India, among others. There are about 440 such operators and the top 10 of them account for 60 per cent of the available stock.

Smartworks usually follows an asset-light model whereby it takes bare-shell buildings from developers on long lease, fits it out according to customers’ requirement and lets them out in parts.