Workspace aggregator Qdesq gets seed funding from Redcliffe's Jain, others

Branded workspace aggregator Qdesq Realtech Pvt Ltd has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from a group of investors led by Dheeraj Jain of Redcliffe Capital.

Other investors who participated in this round include Jagdish Kumar (former regional director - APAC, DuPont), Bharat Gupta, Ankush Saigal and Praveen Saini, a company statement said.

Dheeraj Jain's earlier investments include Deyor rooms, DogSpot, Mappr, Simpli5d technologies, Shipsy, Zocalo, Burger Singh, and others.

The Gurgaon-headquartered team was founded in October 2015 by Paras Arora and Lavesh Bhandari. Arora, an alumnus of London Metropolitan University, has previously worked with Colliers International and Anant Raj Industries, and is also a partner at Udaan Angels. Bhandari is from IIT Delhi, and worked with Ixigo and Royal Bank of Scotland prior to founding Qdesq. He is also the co-founder of tech startup couponvoodoo.com.

"The funds raised would be deployed in team building, operations and technology and third party venue acquisition. We would be adding 100 more third party venues and two more own branded and managed centres in the next two months," said Arora.

Qdesq aggregates ready-to-move-in office spaces at standardised prices with amenities such as free WiFi, power backup and a virtual business concierge service. Its inventory consists of both company-owned managed workspaces as well as Qdesq verified third party listings. Qdesq is currently operational in Delhi and Gurgaon.

In the office spaces segment, Mumbai-based on-demand platform for sharing and renting office space, MyCuteOffice has raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Lead Angels, an angel group.

Coworkable is perhaps one of the early players in the office sharing space in India. Internationally, ShareDesk, which raised $1.1 million from Californian venture capitalist Tim Draper, and WeWork are other successful startups in this segment. Indeed, most startup accelerators and incubators also offer co-sharing space for ventures they mentor.

In May last year, global venture capital firm Matrix Partners' Indian unit tied up  with realtor K Raheja Corp to launch a new co-working space in Powai (Mumbai) for startups.

IT industry lobby National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) is in the process of setting up newer co-working centers, christened 'Startup Warehouse', across major cities.