WeWork opens its first Singapore venue but has more co-working spaces coming soon

Photo credit: WeWork

Co-working dynamo WeWork has been hotly anticipated in Southeast Asia. The local ecosystem was jazzed to see the US company acquire Singapore-based Spacemob in August, preempting its arrival in the region as part of a US$500 million investment that also covers its expansion to Korea.

Five months later, Spacemob founder and CEO Turochas “T” Fuad is WeWork’s managing director for Southeast Asia, and the company’s first space is officially open for business in Singapore’s Beach Center. It also has two more confirmed Singapore spaces in the works.

This is the 200th location for the global co-working company, while Singapore is its 20th country – a nice set of round numbers for Beach Center. “I’m not sure why – it’s just a random alignment,” Fuad laughs.

The venue has been taking in tenants since the beginning of December. Now it’s almost at full capacity, Fuad tells Tech in Asia. The mix includes freelancers and individual entrepreneurs (what the company terms “creators”), startups and small businesses, and larger multinationals looking for flexible space and networking opportunities.

See: Co-working unicorn WeWork heading to Singapore, Tokyo next

Singaporean startups like Chope, PolicyPal, and StashAway are already housed at Beach Center, as well as larger companies like Twilio and HP. Freelancers include people working in a range of fields, from accounting and finance to animation.

The location is the first of several planned to open in Singapore as well as Southeast Asia. Fuad doesn’t share more details about WeWork’s regional plans at the moment, but the company has already announced its second and third locations in Singapore.

Early next year, a new space will open at 71 Robinson Road, in the heart of Singapore’s central business district (CBD). It will house around 1,000 people. “I think Robinson Road is very classic CBD,” Fuad says. “You have banks and financial institutions, but you also have fintech startups that are interested in those spaces.”

WeWork’s space in Funan will serve another 700 people.

The price points change slightly between the two initial venues – a private office at Robinson Road starts at US$906 per month and a desk starts from US$438 per month. The starting prices at Beach Road are US$817 and US$408, respectively, according to the website.

Together with Singapore-based real estate firm CapitaLand, WeWork also announced that it’s the first tenant of Funan, the upcoming re-imagined version of a tech-oriented shopping mall well known to Singaporeans.

Funan DigitalLife Mall was established in 1985 and closed down in late 2015. Its replacement will be a sizeable complex with shops, office space, and co-living facilities. True to its techie heritage, it will feature smart parking facilities, office entry through facial recognition, and robot-assisted shopping.

WeWork’s space in Funan will serve another 700 people and focus more on high-tech startups and multinationals, Fuad says.

Room to breathe

WeWork at Beach Center