Startups are expected to lease about 29 million sq ft between 2022 and 2024, a 1.3-times increase over the 2019-2021 period, said a joint report by Colliers and CRE Matrix.

“Increased entrepreneurship and the rapid growth of startups have been one of the most remarkable trends in the Indian office space. Startups are the fastest growing occupier group among other occupier groups and currently occupy 10 per cent of the office space. This has created numerous opportunities for office space providers to rethink and reposition their workplace offerings to attract a diverse set of occupiers,” said Ramesh Nair, Colliers’ CEO for India.

Due to increased digital adoption and an ecommerce boom the demand will be led by fintech and logistics startups, which have seen their businesses scale up rapidly post-pandemic.

“The time taken for an Indian startup to turn into a unicorn has halved in the last decade. Their business is growing at a rapid pace, and so is their need for office space, as business and real estate must be aligned,” said Juggy Marwaha, CEO of Prestige Office Ventures.

"Bangalore and the NCR (National Capital Region), which are home to about 50 unicorns, will play a substantial part in office square footage taken up over the next 3-5 years," said Marwaha.

"Our internal forecasts peg the startup occupancy to be about 78 million sq ft of office space, with 20-22 million sq ft of flex space by 2024, totalling about 100 million sq ft by 2024. Within this startup segment, the fintech niche aces all others as the leader in terms of the number of startups, occupied office spaces, and growth. We anticipate other sectors such as edtech, logistics, healthtech and proptech to catch up soon," said Abhishek Kiran Gupta, CEO of CRE Matrix.