Knotel Announces Partnership With Second Coworking Firm
Startup office operator teaming up with Galvanize
By Rey Mashayekhi November 3, 2017 5:32 pm
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Startup office provider Knotel has teamed up with yet another coworking firm after agreeing to a “strategic partnership” with Galvanize that will see the two firms refer their office-using clientele to one another.
Knotel, which provides short-term and rolling lease agreements to small-to-midsized tenants who effectively sublease office space from the company, said that it will send “smaller teams” that use or are looking to use its spaces to Galvanize, which runs eight “campuses” across the country and recently opened its first New York City location at 315 Hudson Street in Hudson Square.
The technology-focused coworking firm, in turn, will refer its larger clients to Knotel and its 23 locations across the city. Galvanize—which, in addition to coworking, operates a technology school for startup enterprises—will also provide Knotel users with access to its educational programs and event space.
The deal is the second such agreement that Knotel has reached with a coworking provider this fall. In September, the company announced a similar partnership with Grind that also sees the two companies refer clients to each other—with Grind sending companies that have grown out of the coworking model to Knotel, and Knotel passing on the business of smaller users and freelancers to Grind. Knotel also took over Grind’s location at 419 Park Avenue South as part of the deal.
Eugene Lee, Knotel’s head of property acquisition and business development, said Galvanize’s tech-based educational services are “directly connected to the needs of modern-day companies” and were a key factor in Knotel’s partnership with the firm.
“Many of the businesses headquartered at Knotels are expanding quickly, and this relationship will facilitate their hiring and growth,” Lee said in a statement to CO.
According to Galvanize, 75 percent of the startups at its New York campus are backed by venture capital, while “all of them are either technology [firms] or technology-enabled.” Michael Huffstetler, the coworking firm’s general manager, said that the agreement provides a vehicle for early-stage companies that “eventually outgrow our offering.”
“It’s tough to sign a five-year lease that [a startup tenant] may outgrow in five months,” Huffstetler said. “Knotel, from our perspective, offers the best solution for companies with teams of 20 or more to continue to grow in their own space.” Knotel, meanwhile, is expected to reciprocate by referring “exciting new startups to join Galvanize,” he added.
Knotel has grown at a brisk pace since sealing a $25 million Series A funding round in February. (Disclosure: Observer Capital, led by Observer Media Publisher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Meyer, is among the company’s investors.) The company says it has tripled in size since the beginning of the year and now has roughly 500,000 square feet of office space under lease in New York City, with plans to exceed 1 million square feet of space in the coming months. Knotel also recently announced its expansion into the San Francisco market.
