Flex office firm Industrious is seeing major growth

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One year ago, commercial real estate behemoth CBRE acquired Industrious, a flexible office company that opened its first space in 2013 and grew at an impressive pace in the aftermath of the pandemic. 

At the time, CBRE said in a release that Industrious’ success was “the result of an ongoing investment into understanding what makes for a great workplace, paired with continuous operational improvement.”

And it was a fair bet. In 2025, Industrious increased its global footprint by 58% from 2024, now with more than 250 units open in over 100 cities, according to the company. It is projecting 100% growth in new signings in 2026. 

Industrious currently ranks third in its sector, by number of spaces and total square footage, behind International Workplace Group (owner of Regus) and WeWork. 

The global flexible office market is poised to grow from a value of $54.59 billion in 2025 to $147.2 billion by 2033, according to SkyQuest.

While the mainstream office sector is still slowly recovering from the pandemic and the new work-from-home culture, flexible office, which encompasses coworking spaces, is benefiting from that slow recovery. Large companies want people back in the office, but they are also increasingly focused on the workplace experience for those not working at headquarters.

“I would say the biggest thing of all that’s driving it is a focus on the part of companies to try to get their midsize and smaller offices up to the quality level of their headquarters city so people don’t leave for a competitor, and they need help with that,” said Jamie Hodari, founder and CEO of Industrious. “It’s really hard for even JPMorgan or Google to run a really beautiful, engaging office experience for 43 people.”

Hodari said there are large cities with too much office space, but there are also smaller cities and regions with too little space. That plays right into the flexible office model. 

“You have all of these people who want to basically work near where they live. They want to bike to work. They want to walk to work. They want to drive five minutes to work,” said Hodari.

Of Industrious’ last 50 workspace openings, a disproportionate number are in neighborhoods, not in large central business districts. 

There is also a drive by landlords of Class B office buildings, which still have high vacancies, to refurbish their properties in…