The Flexi Group celebrated two significant achievements on March 1st: Common Ground‘s 8th anniversary and the opening of a new location for The Hive in Hong Kong.

Since launching in 2017, Common Ground has expanded across three countries, serving thousands of members from startups to Fortune 500 companies with occupancy reaching 95% within six months of opening their first location.

Simultaneously, The Hive is growing its Hong Kong presence with a new 30k square foot Causeway Bay location spread across six floors, marking their ninth space in the city and contributing to The Flexi Group’s network that now spans eight countries and eleven cities.

Chris Edwards from The Flexi Group shares that group-member Common Ground have expanded their portfolio in Malaysia by approx. 100k sqft in 2024. About half of the expansion comes through their Enterprise Solutions products, where the firm manages space on behalf of multinational companies across Malaysia.

ICYMI #1: Chris shared notes about this product in the first edition of Undercurrents on Fractional Offices. ICYMI #2: The Flexi Group operates 45+ locations across 11 cities in the APAC region.

Chris Edwards shares that The Flexi Group’s Common Ground brand is expanding in Bangkok via a partnership agreement with Capstone Asset, and Central Pattana.

andcards, the Ukrainian Coworking Association, Nat Coworking and CBRE of Ukraine ran a comprehensive study. They surveyed 40 operators, and 630 members across 12 cities and 12 business sectors to assess the state of coworking (during a full-scale war) and to share emerging trends.

They shared data on why folks work from coworking spaces: understandably 45% for availability of shelter/internet/electricity, but community and service also came in at 28% and 22% respectively). Community & collab also come in top (35.7%) when it comes to choosing coworking over alternatives, rent cost coming in second at 25.2%. When asked what the most important qualities in an operator are, 32.3% said responsiveness, followed by the ability to find common ground (31.9%) and being well organized (22.7%).

Emissary Capital shares that Common Ground is exploring an IPO on the Nasdaq as part of The Flexi Group.

Great to also get some insights from Erman Akinci and Juhn Teo about their journey building one of the largest coworking businesses in Asia.