It’s been a year of milestones for coworking behemoth WeWork. It announced a $3B injection from Japan’s SoftBank Group, which would value the company at $45B, making it second only to Uber as the most valuable startup in the country.

In September, it became the biggest private tenant in Manhattan, with more than 5M SF under its control in the borough. Across the city, WeWork has more than 7.2M SF in total footprint, according to the company's figures, and is in 95 cities worldwide.

This is against a backdrop of a general coworking explosion, with players like Industrious, Knotel, Spaces and Convene all bolstering their presence on the office market. Then there are the newcomers from powerhouses like CBRE with Hana and Tishman Speyer with Studio, respectively.

The swift growth of the sector has forced property owners to rethink the way they run their operations and made some anxious about the sector's vulnerability to a downturn.

But WeWork Chief Development Officer Granit Gjonbalaj, who is speaking at Bisnow’s New York State of the Market event next week, argues the number of new businesses moving into coworking proves the health and strength of the industry.

The more players the better, he says, adding that WeWork’s focus is now on aggressively pursuing partnerships with landlords, as opposed to just traditional leases. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.