Vertex leads $5.5m round in Singapore's Spacemob

Additional participants in the round include Indonesia's Alpha JWC Ventures and several angel investors from the property and hospitality industries. The company will use the new capital for regional expansion: from its current single location it plans to grow to 30 sites across the Asia Pacific region within the next three years.

Spacemob's first location is in Singapore, and another two locations in Singapore and Jakarta are currently under development. Founder Turochas Fuad is now eying sites in Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan, with Australia and North Asia expected to come after that. The company partners with property owners to offer its management services and proprietary technology at these branded locations. It believes this asset-light model will allow for easy scaling and fast growth compared to its competitors.

"What this means is that the more successful Spacemob is, the more yield the property owners get out of the space," said Fuad in a statement. "In an age where commercial and retail properties are finding it difficult to find tenants, Spacemob offers them a unique way to get the most out of the space that they have. This in turn benefits the new workforce who seek more flexible work environments."

Spacemob's first space was launched in October, but the company already claims to be operationally profitable. Clients range from entrepreneurs and freelancers to multinational corporations such as General Assembly and Survey Monkey.

A number of co-working space developers in Asia have received backing from private investors this year, most notably US-based WeWork, to which China's Legend Holdings and Hony Capital committed a reported $430 million in Series F funding in March to support its Asia expansion. Other investments include a pair of RMB200 million ($31 million) extended Series A rounds for China's UrWork, in March, and KR Space earlier this month.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Early-stage
• Real estate
• Technology
• Singapore
• Vertex Management (II)
• Venture
• seed