For about a decade, French operator Work & Share has stuck to a simple rule: run workspaces, don’t own them. It built a network of flexible offices in the suburbs around Paris, more recently opening in Cachan and Villejuif, without buying a single building.
This week, that rule bent for the first time. Work & Share has taken a strategic stake in a real estate fund, and not one in Paris but in West Africa. Its investment vehicle, Work & Share Venture, has bought into AWIP II, the second fund of AfricaWorks Investment Partners, which buys and develops buildings for coworking, coliving and hospitality.
On its own, this is a modest deal. As a signal, it is worth a closer look. It says a lot about where flex operators now see growth, and about how differently the product is being built outside Europe.
The deal in brief
AfricaWorks, founded in 2019, is one of Africa’s largest coworking operators, with spaces in cities including Abidjan, Accra, Dakar, Lagos, Lusaka, Nairobi, Cape Town and Johannesburg. In 2025, founders Grégoire Schwebig and Anthony Anziani set up AWIP as a separate real estate arm. Its goal is not to lease buildings but to own the buildings the operator fills.
The second fund closed at $25 million in equity and debt, backed by about twelve investors. Besides Work & Share co-founders Emmanuel and Matthieu Russel, they include Robert Daussun of private equity firm LBO France. The fund plans to buy or develop four to five mixed-use buildings, mainly in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) and Dakar (Senegal), and targets a 25% internal rate of return per asset.
The first fund raised $8 million in 2025 and has already been fully invested in two buildings, one in Dakar and one in Lagos. Both are due to open in the first quarter of 2027.
Why West Africa? Follow the yield gap
Matthieu Russel was open about the reason. In West Africa, returns on commercial real estate can exceed 20%, far above what investors can get in Europe. With European office yields under pressure from higher interest rates and an oversupply of older stock, that gap is hard to ignore.
The structural story behind it is just as important. Many West African business hubs combine fast-growing, young workforces with a shortage of modern, ready-to-use office space. For international companies, start-ups and NGOs, a flexible workspace solves more than a lease-length problem. It offers reliable power, fast connectivity and professional services from day one, without a long fit-out. In that context, flex is not a niche but often the most practical way to get a team up and running.
Coworking, hotel and rooftop in one building
What stands out most is the product itself. AWIP’s first Dakar building, in the Mermoz district, gives a good picture. It covers 5,000 sqm, cost around $10 million, and combines about 150 coworking desks with 40 apart-hotel rooms, a rooftop, a restaurant and a pool.
In Europe, operators are slowly moving towards blending work and hospitality, often by converting existing buildings. In West Africa, that mix is designed in from the start. Revenue comes from several sources at once: desk memberships, short stays for business travellers, food and drink, and events. That spreads risk and makes better use of every square metre, something European operators struggling with half-empty meeting rooms will recognise.
The other side of 20%
High returns rarely come without strings. Investors in these markets face currency risk, political uncertainty and thinner exit markets than in Paris or Amsterdam. There is some cushion: the West African CFA franc used in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire is pegged to the euro, but that does not apply to Nigeria. There is also execution risk: neither building from the first fund is operating yet, so the model still has to prove itself in practice.
For Work & Share, the stake is best seen as a strategic side bet rather than a change of course. The core business stays in Île-de-France, where the company keeps opening new sites. But it now gains a front-row seat in one of the fastest-developing flex markets in the world.
What European operators can take from this
The broader lesson is that the line between operator and investor is fading. Operators know better than anyone which buildings work, which locations fill up and what members will pay. Using that knowledge to invest, even with a minority stake in someone else’s fund, is a logical next step.
For operators in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, the question is not necessarily whether to look at Africa. It is whether their own expertise is worth more than the rental margin they earn today.
Conclusion
A Paris suburban coworking operator investing in buildings in Dakar and Abidjan sounds like a curiosity. In practice, it shows where flex is heading: towards mixed-use concepts, towards operators who also invest, and towards markets where demand for good workspace is growing faster than supply. The first real test comes in early 2027, when the first AWIP buildings open their doors.
