The shared-office space startup WeWork wants to help its members "create a life, not just a living." With a $17-billion valuation, investors seem to agree and help the project become a big success globally.
When Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvery founded WeWork Cos. in 2010, they had two offices spaces in New York. Now the office-space rental startup is valued at $17 billion (16 billion euros and has more than 130 locations in 30 cities across the world.
"It starts with the space," said Eugen Miropolski, the managing director for WeWork Europe. Walking into WeWorks offices spread over four floors at Berlin's Sony Center, the coworking space could easily be mistaken for a hip coffee shop, if not for the towering view of Berlin's Tiergarten and the German Bundestag from the sleek steel and glass building.