WeWork opens its first Asia co-working space in Shanghai

Photo credit: Jerry Yang.

WeWork, a US-based startup that has raised US$1.4 billion in funding, is making a big push into Asia with the opening this week of its first co-working space in Asia.

The Shanghai space, opening July 1, is the first of three that it will open in China’s heartland of hustle this year.

Each WeWork location in China will be overseen by a team of local managers.

The company is also plotting openings in Hong Kong, Seoul, Sydney, and an unspecified Indian city.

WeWork claims to have 50,000 paying co-workers using its desks and office rooms at 90-plus locations around the world.

“China has always had a creative workforce and successful businesses. Today, China is a rapidly developing economy home to big businesses, an active market for small-to-medium-sized enterprises, and millions of entrepreneurs,” says Fred Lu, general manager of WeWork China. “Our mission is to give our members the space, connections, services, and flexibility they need to bring energy and inspiration to their work, while fostering collaborations with like-minded people.”

WeWork is a bit pricier than existing co-working spaces in Shanghai, with a permanent desk and chair starting at US$430 per month, and walled-off office spaces from US$500. (Updated on June 29: the article earlier got the wrong price – a much higher price – for the office space. That’s now corrected. A sentence referencing New York prices has therefore been removed)

Shanghai’s well-established Naked Hub, for example, has “hot desks” from US$45 per month and office pods starting at US$450.

WeWork’s first Shanghai space is on 135 Yanping Lu in Jing’an district. “Two more locations – in the Huangpu district at The Konnect, No. 118 Yunnan Road South, and in Jing’an District, at 696 Weihai Road – will open in late 2016,” explains the startup in a statement.

“Each WeWork location in China will be overseen by a team of local managers, who will get to know the members, help manage the building and daily tasks, and organize events and programming that will encourage collaboration,” it added.