The big news this week was the formal announcement of a new affiliate partnership between WeWork and Vast Coworking Group. Different from other partnerships related to their All Access product, this endeavor will enable WeWork Workplace customers to search and book select Vast Coworking locations via their app.

We had a bunch of questions too, which is why we invited the CEOs of Yardi, WeWork and Vast to go beyond the headlines on our recent podcast episode.

On the topic of BOGO sales, Venture X, Office Evolution, and Intelligent Office have also launched a series of limited-time promotions this summer across locations in the U.S. and Canada. In June, July, and August, the three brands – all part of Vast Coworking Group – are offering a different promotion each month at participating locations. The promotions include:

BOGO Meeting Rooms Hours in June, BOGO Day Offices in July, Fourth month free Coworking memberships at Venture X and Office Evolution in August and a free month of phone answering at Intelligent Office that month too.

Keith Larsen from TheRealDeal shares an increasingly popular theory around why Yardi took a majority stake of WeWork, in that the former is looking to "fix and then flip" the latter for a "small profit". It’s possible, but given the other properties Yardi owns in coworking, there still could be a pure

Even though I did call it that Yardi would become a WeWork investor back in 2013, I did then call that IWG would land up acquiring WeWork for the franchise play, I may still be ‘in the money’ as they say.

However, since then, a new player has started making waves with acquisitions within the franchise space. Could we see Vast Coworking Group move in here? What if Yardi takes WeWork private first?

Vast Coworking Group saw a 21% increase in sales and a 16.5% increase systemwide membership across its Venture X and Office Evolution brands in 2023. The company also opened 11 new locations (9 Venture X; 2 Office Evolution) and added 295,578 square feet to its global footprint across both brands.

The group also promoted several longstanding leaders to its executive team, including Paula Mercer (to Vice President of Vast), Tammy Senter (to Vice President of Operations, Venture X), Brad Johansson (to Vice President of Operations, Office Evolution) and Darcy Masciotro (to Vice President of Operations, Intelligent Office).

Vast Coworking Group signed a lease for a former WeWork space in Downtown Miami and will be converting 20,253 sqft of the building’s 7th, 8th, and 9th floors into a Venture X location.