Next Story Group reimagines urban shared spaces with Kafnu

It is a co-working space within a luxury hotel.

Commercial real estates services firm CBRE’s latest research notes that towards the end of 2017, 1.18 million square feet of land in Hong Kong will be occupied by co-working spaces. With many co-working spaces sprawling to meet the burgeoning demand for office supply, hospitality group Next Story wants to offer something different. They want to offer a shared space that blends working, living, playing, learning, and sleeping through Kafnu, the only shared space for entrepreneurs and creators that is located inside Kerry Hotel, a luxury hotel in Hong Kong.

“The space provides everything you need to work, dine, live, play, learn, and rest – so it’s much more than just a co-working space, “ says Morris Sim, Chief Marketing Officer of Next Story Group, which is behind Kafnu.

“Our mission with Kafnu is to connect entrepreneurially minded people who create new value. To support them, the space provides an ideal creative environment with the tools, content, and connections to help them get there faster,” he adds.

Sim shares that Kafnu is named after a village in India where people go to start Himalayan hikes, or a basecamp, so to speak.

“Just like travelers go to Kafnu to begin their real journeys, our spaces are designed to be a basecamp for entrepreneurs, creators, and artists on their metaphorical journeys,” he says.

Sim says that to their knowledge, no one has ever created a shared space that blends working, living, playing, learning, and sleeping. He also shares that the development of Kafnu and making it a reality has been both challenging and exciting – as blending these components together requires both creativity and precision, he notes.

They tackled the challenges that were before them by starting on conducting comprehensive market research to understand the nuanced needs of entrepreneurial-minded people in each market they’re entering. They then assembled a team that he describes as world-class - from design to operations to technology to marketing to finance to community management – to properly create and launch Kafnu.

He believes that with the right insight and the right team, anything is possible. Our team is diverse and high-performance. Collectively, our team has extensive experience in design, property development, marketing, technology and finance, with backgrounds from industries including hotels, real estate development, technology, fashion, and new media, says Sim.

Additionally, their local teams in Hong Kong and Taipei, are supported by their global team, connected to the latest culture, design, and technology trends all over the world.

Next Story Group will officially unveil Kafnu by September.