How HSR Layout became India’s startup street, and what it means for the office market

/ Office Space Guides / By
Long workstation hall with large windows and natural light

Walk down 17th Cross Road in HSR Layout on a weekday morning and you’ll pass more laptop bags than school bags. A decade ago this was a quiet BDA residential layout in south-east Bengaluru. Today it is one of the densest clusters of startups in the country. YourStory nicknamed one stretch “Unicorn Street” back in 2020, after Udaan, Cure.fit and others set up within a few hundred metres of each other.

At eCradle we’ve run a coworking space here since 2017, so we’ve watched this change from the inside. Here’s our view of why it happened, and what it means for anyone looking for office space in Bengaluru today.

Why founders picked HSR

1. Cost, at least at first. In the mid-2010s, Koramangala was where startups wanted to be, but rents there were rising fast. HSR, next door, offered similar access at lower rents, both for homes and for offices converted from residential buildings. Early-stage founders who live and work within a few kilometres of each other found it a natural fit.

2. Talent nearby. Engineers, designers and product people already lived in HSR, Koramangala, BTM and along the Outer Ring Road. A short commute is a real advantage when you’re hiring against companies with bigger brands and bigger salaries.

3. Location. HSR sits between Koramangala, the ORR tech corridor (Bellandur, Marathahalli) and Hosur Road towards Electronic City. Most of the city’s tech workforce can reach it.

4. The cluster effect. Once a few well-known startups moved in, investors, service providers, cafés and coworking spaces followed. An eChai startup-grid listing counts nearly a hundred startups and around twenty coworking spaces in HSR alone. Hiring, meeting investors and finding a co-founder all get easier when everyone is within walking distance.

The bigger picture: Bengaluru’s flex market

HSR is a neighbourhood-level version of a city-wide trend. Bengaluru is now India’s largest market for flexible office space:

  • Bengaluru holds roughly a third of India’s flexible workspace stock (Vestian estimates 33%; ANAROCK/myHQ put it at 31%).
  • Knight Frank recorded about 5.3 million sq ft of flex space absorption in Bengaluru in 2025, the highest of any Indian city.
  • Nationally, flex transactions grew from about 2.2 million sq ft in 2017 to 18.6 million sq ft in 2025 (Knight Frank).

The startup base behind this is large too. Karnataka had about 17,000 DPIIT-recognised startups by early 2025, and Bengaluru district alone accounted for over 13,600 by late 2024.

What this means if you’re looking for space

Demand is high, so good small spaces go quickly. The big operators focus on large corporate deals of hundreds of seats. A 10–40 person team can find itself either stuck in a hot-desk zone or pushed towards a lock-in it doesn’t want.

“Per seat” prices hide a lot. Electricity, DG backup, internet, parking and meeting-room hours are often charged on top. Compare all-in prices.

Private offices are the sweet spot for growing teams. Once you pass about 15 people, a closed, furnished office that’s only yours usually beats open coworking on privacy, focus and culture. It still avoids the deposit, fit-out and 3–5 year commitment of a traditional lease.

Small operators are worth a look. A small, owner-run space often can’t match a big chain’s events calendar. What it can offer is flexibility on terms and someone who actually picks up the phone when the internet drops at 9 pm.

What I see next

HSR is no longer cheap, and residential-to-commercial conversions have limits. I expect demand to keep spilling over into Sector 6 and 7, Agara and the roads towards Sarjapur and Bellandur, while HSR’s core stays the address founders want. AI startups are already clustering in buildings here. That’s another wave of small teams that need good space fast and don’t want to sign a five-year lease.

For founders, the advice hasn’t changed: pick a place your team can reach, pay for what you use, and keep your options open until you know how big you’re going to be.

Tisha is Facilities Manager at eCradle Coworking Spaces in HSR Layout Sector 6, Bengaluru: private offices, managed office space and coworking desks for small and growing teams.

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