Coworking spaces have become a rapidly growing industry. Driven by millennials and more people starting their own companies or work as freelancers. Large companies, who are attracted by saving money on utilities, physical space, and having real estate experts on their payroll, are also quickly moving into shared workspaces. By 2022, Small Business Labs has projected that there will be 30,000 spaces with 5.1 million members.
The industry has unique technology needs -- see Greetly's guide to coworking space management software. One of the larger and more established players is KUBE by WUN Systems. KUBE provides a variety of services—from internet and voice services to door access and billing—to facilitate co-working space growth.
Well ahead of the coworking trend, WUN Systems was founded in 2008. Originally WUN sold hardware; routers to provide Wifi bandwidth and call routing for the serviced office and business center sector. In 2014, WUN announced HappyDesk, a sister company focused on coworking software.
Now re-branded as KUBE, WUN's extry is an extensive platform intended to meet many coworking space software needs. Coworking spaces can use just one or two of KUBE's modules or all of them—whatever configuration works best for their situation. Many shared workspaces use some features from WUN and others from another space management software provider like essensys or Cobot.
This space management software lets administrators set up new members for internet, door entry, or other tools with the click of the mouse, create template contracts for different spaces using interactive floorplans, and automatically bill users for their space and utility use. To further decrease time-consuming overhead tasks, members can easily book conference rooms or other assets through the self-serve interface of the KUBE space management software.
As mentioned above, KUBE is a software platform. WUN Systems has partnered with best-in-class providers to round out its offerings. Their roster of integrations includes Mailchimp for CRM, PayPal for collecting rent, and Intercom for customer service. Needing virtual receptionist software to round out their product, at the 2016 Global Workspace Association's annual conference, WUN announced that Greetly was their exclusive visitor management system partner.
KUBE includes KPI and reporting features on an intelligent dashboard, coworking spaces can project profits, plan outreach to prospects, and keep track of progress towards goals. KUBE by WUN hopes that their complete and scalable coworking and space management software will help coworking spaces control costs, and ensure the team focuses on scaling the business instead of having to spend all their time managing the space. Ultimately KUBE is most valuable if it frees up your staff to focus so they can understand members' needs, execute coworking events and other activities that strengthen the community.
There are lots of coworking space management software options. Here is how KUBE differentiates itself in the marketplace:
700+ services office locations are using KUBE, including those run by:
In November 2017, WUN Systems was acquired by commercial real estate software developer Yardi, a developer of investment and property management software for all types of real estate companies. With coworking and shared office spaces on the rise, Yardi sees the purchase of WUN as an opportunity for realty investors to create new revenue streams for their buildings.
While the purchase could lead to additional features within the KUBE platform aimed at property investors, for the time being, KUBE by WUN is still doing business as usual—fully focused on streamlining and automating the administration of coworking spaces.
KUBE by WUN Systems, integrated with Greetly's virtual receptionist software, is an example of office automation that helps smart organizations get more done.
Originally posted on February 3, 2017; updated on February 22, 2018.