Industrious, the second-biggest U.S. coworking firm by number of locations, announced that it acquired PivotDesk, a search website for spare office space.
According to Reuters, Industrious also raised $25 million in new funds, as investors are encouraged by the growing demand for coworking sites. Real estate consultants predict that working off-site will reduce the need for a traditional office to about 55 percent within the next decade, compared to more than 95 percent in the 2000s.
Brooklyn-based Industrious raised $37 million last September and is likely to raise more capital in October, said Jamie Hodari, co-founder and chief executive of Industrious.
“Every company in this space is either finishing a round or in the beginning stages of another round” of fundraising, he said. “We’re on the cusp of the dollar amounts getting much larger in our industry.”
In fact, Hodari claims there are eight companies currently seeking to raise between $20 million to $40 million each. Industrious operates 12 locations across 11 U.S. cities and expects to have 33 sites in 25 cities by the end of this year.
The Industrious funding comes just one week after WeWork raised $300 million from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, bringing the funds raised by the coworking industry leader to about $2 billion. Reports say that this round of money is the first installment of a multi-billion dollar funding round.
Terms of Industrious’ acquisition of PivotDesk, which allows companies to advertise their excess space, were not disclosed.
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