Desana – the Edinburgh and London based startup that gives subscribers access to a UK -wide network of quality workspace to use whenever and wherever they need it has closed a seed round of £550,000 with Techstart Ventures.
Desana gives organisations and individuals by-the-hour access to a quality network of coworking workplaces through a single monthly subscription. This investment will enable Desana to grow its existing network of instantly accessible work spaces across Britain as well as beginning to position the network overseas.
It is reported that over half of the world’s professionals work remotely on a regular basis, posing new challenges for modern workers and employers: working from home regularly, in particular, often leads to feelings of isolation and unproductivity. Desana aims to bring subscribers seamless access to quality workspaces so they are always connected to like-minded people, good desks, and speedy Wi-Fi.
The platform supports the nascent rise in co-working in recent years (it’s estimated that a new coworking space opens in London every five days and global coworking spaces such as WeWork are used by employers such as Apple, Facebook, and HSBC), enabling coworking and flexible work spaces to list vacant desks to suit their own demand. Coworking space operators can therefore monetise spare occupancy while subscribers to Desana benefit from flexible access to quality work space in a way that suits modern working.
Michael Cockburn, co-founder of Desana, said, “The idea for Desana came from our own experience of working from home – like many flexible workers my co-founder and I realised while working from our kitchen tables that we missed the camaraderie of an office space and in so doing we spotted the wider corporate opportunity. In the last decade, huge technological advancements mean that a notable portion of the global population only require a laptop and WiFi to work, Desana gives these workers the flexibility to work from a coworking office space as and when they want to.”
Mark Hogarth of TechStart Ventures commented, “We were delighted to support the Desana team with their recent seed round. The upcoming launch of the Desana platform is just a first step towards enabling a radical change in how organisations and people interact with their workplaces.”
Desana is scheduled to launch in late September.
