Singapore’s JustCo raises US$12 million to expand its reach in Southeast Asia

vivian

October 13, 2017

JustCo, Sansiri

JustCo, a co-working space provider based in Singapore has recently secured US$12 million in its latest Series B funding round from one of Thailand’s largest property developers Sansiri in an effort to fuel its expansion project in Southeast Asia.

According to a filing, the Thai developer completed the transaction last month via its Singaporean subsidiary Sansiri Global Investment Pte Ltd and currently holds 6.09 percent of the JustCo’s paid-up capital.

Following this investment, JustCo’s valuation has also increased to US$200 million.

“We spent the last five years building up a platform with the vision of becoming the dominant player of co-working spaces in Southeast Asia,” said JustCo’s founder and CEO Kong Wan Sing.

JustCo currently operate four locations in Singapore, taking up a total space of 180,000 square feet. The co-working space, however, aims to open more co-working centers in at least six regional countries.

It hopes to have 30 locations in Asia by 2018, covering a total floor space of more than one million square feet. This includes expanding into other Southeast Asian cities like Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Manila.

“Each market in this region presents its own unique challenges but our groundwork for exponential rollout has been laid and we have cultivated strategic partners in the various countries,” Kong added. “Our inroad for Bangkok will be laid when we partner with Sansiri.”

With this, JustCo foresees its current member base to grow by five-fold from its current 12,000 community.

Sansiri CEO of Apichart Chutrakul elaborates, “We see much potential for the coworking trend to take hold in Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia and we see JustCo as the right partner to capitalize on this trend.”

“Given JustCo’s track record and its acute business strategy, we are optimistic this partnership will be fruits and we are positive and excited in joining hands with JustCo.”

This is not the first time that the Thai developer has invested in the co-working space business. It earlier teamed up with Thai co-working space operator Hubba to open Southeast Asia’s largest co-working space known as HUBBA-TO, in its community mall project in Bangkok.

In July, JustCo has also joined forces with Shanghai-based co-working space firm Naked Hub, forming the largest chain of premium co-working spaces across Asia to compete with American co-working space giant WeWork.

vivian

Vivian Foo is a reporter who writes about Southeast Asia’s technology and startup space. The entry point which led her to write about the startup ecosystem was her fascination of the dot-com boom. She is taking a deep dive into how the entrepreneurial mindset works and hopes to share the insights, innovation, and stories of the startups with her readers.