WeWork rival Knotel is now valued at $500M

Knotel closed a $70 million in a Series B funding round on Tuesday, with plans to expand rapidly and muster a serious challenge to industry leader WeWork.

The flexible office space startup led by Amol Sarva has now raised $100 million between two seed rounds, and is valued at $500 million, according to research firm Pitchbook.

Knotel, which in the past two years has leased more than 1.1 million square feet in New York, San Francisco and London, said the new funding will allow the company to double in size.

Knotel’s latest funding round was led by Newmark Knight Frank and the Sapir Organization, with participation from the Wolfson Group, the Moinian Group and Wainbridge Capital.

Sarva, who also co-founder of Virgin Mobile USA, was embroiled in a public feud with WeWork last year, accusing the company of corporate espionage. In response, he parked a school bus in front of WeWork’s headquarters with a sign that read “graduate from co-working” — a reference, Sarva said, to the company’s perceived frat culture.

The company’s $25 million Series A round was supported by Bloomberg Beta, Invest AG, Observer Capital, Rocket Internet, and 500 Startups.

Knotel targets small-to-mid-sized companies with flexible leases. It recently announced plans to launch a blockchain-based online office listing data platform called KnotelKoin, with aims to take down another billion-dollar behemoth, CoStar.