Adrian Johnson, founder of Elyos AI and member of Y Combinator’s 2023 cohort, shared YC’s official new joiner manual guidance that explicitly discourages startups from using coworking spaces. The accelerator’s manual states YC doesn’t believe in coworking because it already provides community, citing concerns that open coworking spaces are loud and distracting, can overshadow a startup’s internal culture, and often house companies "going through the motions without truly being serious." YC argues the best startups have weird ideas and need private space with closed doors to operate differently from average startups.

The manual specifically mentions WeWork, advising founders who use it to secure enclosed offices rather than hot desks.

Worth noting that YC has backed Commery, Innov8, Deskimo, FlexDesk, AND Tandem, who are all in/around the coworking space, plus 2,700+ B2B startups who sell into or to coworking spaces.

Incuspaze, who operates 50+ centers across 18 cities with 371.6k sqm of workspace, acquired Pune-based Trios in an undisclosed cash and equity deal expected to boost annual group revenue by 10-15% toward its €408-467M target for fiscal 2025-26.

Trios, founded in 2017, operated 12 coworking spaces across Pune and Gurugram managing 14k sqm, with the co-founders remaining to support integration.

Separately, OYO-backed Innov8 sold a 3% stake at approximately €115M valuation and plans to double its footprint to 100 locations by year-end, reporting €6.82M profit after tax for FY 2023-24 compared to €275,000 the previous year. The simultaneous transactions highlight rapid consolidation and investor confidence in India’s flexible workspace sector, as Incuspaze is also launching FlexLeaze, an enterprise fit-out platform.

Innov8, a prominent coworking brand in India (now owned by OYO), plans to double its centers to 100 in the coming year, expanding from its current 45 centers across 10 cities. The company aims to triple its seating capacity to over 50,000 to meet rising demand from modern professionals seeking flexible, collaborative workspaces.

This expansion aligns with a broader trend in India’s commercial real estate, where flexible office space now accounts for 21% of transactions, as detailed in a recent Knight Frank India report. Bengaluru leads the charge with the highest number of deals, reflecting the city’s central role in the country’s flex space growth.

Various outlets are reporting that the parent company of OYO (the hospitality & short-term rental platform in in India) has closed their series G round which brought the firm’s valuation down 75% from $10B to just $2.4B. The firm shelved plans for a local IPO in 2021.

Why is this coworking news? Bear with me… So OYO has a coworking sub-brand called OYO Workspaces, which in turn has two products or brands namely "Workflo by OYO" and "Innov8" (which was Y Combinator backed and that OYO acquired for around $31.84M in cash). So, if they’re taking a down round, could we see Workspaces being sold off soon?