Shared crèche floors in office hubs that mid-size firms rent per seat
TL;DR Toddlehall runs a licensed crèche inside or beside a co-working or office hub and sells seats to the companies working there. A firm with 80 staff can't justify its own crèche but still owes one. Renting a few seats in a shared one is cheaper and meets the duty more believably.
Since July 2017, Indian establishments with 50 or more employees have had to provide a crèche, on their own or as part of common facilities, and mothers can visit it four times a day[1]. A law-firm commentary points out that the headcount includes men and that the crèche must be free to employees[2].
If you're a 60- or 150-person company renting desks in a co-working centre then building a compliant room with trained staff is close to impossible. So many firms just ignore the rule. Mothers pay for that, and a 2025 review of South Asian studies found that a lack of childcare support made things worse for children of urban working mothers[3].
What it does, in regulatory terms: a crèche run to labour-law and state standards, sold to employers as a common facility. It isn't a preschool, so it doesn't follow a school curriculum or need education-board approval. Check the state rules notified under the crèche provision before you sign any lease.
Toddlehall takes 2,500–4,000 sq ft on the ground floor of a large co-working or office hub, fits it out for children from six months to six years and staffs it with trained carers at safe ratios. Member companies rent seats by the month, and each seat is a named child slot. Parents get CCTV access, a daily log and a feeding room where mothers can nurse during the day.
The seed pitched a co-working space with childcare built in, sold to parents. I reframed it, because a parent paying for both a desk and a crèche is a tiny market and most parents are employees, not freelancers. Employers already carry the legal duty, so they're the buyer.
The employer pays per seat per month, and the law says parents shouldn't be charged[2]. The hub landlord or co-working operator is a second payer - a crèche helps it fill floors with mid-size tenants, so it may offer rent-free or discounted space. Prices are an assumption to test, so benchmark them against nearby daycare fees before you quote.
India's labour laws are being consolidated, and the Code on Social Security 2020 has absorbed the maternity statute[1]. That puts compliance back in front of HR teams. Large daycare chains now claim hundreds of corporate links[4], which shows employers will buy childcare from outside providers.
There is no public figure for shared workplace crèches in India. The firmest signal is what buyers already do - one large daycare chain says it has 180+ centres in 20+ cities and 650+ corporate connects[4].
That's the neighbouring employer-sponsored daycare market. To size your own first site, count the firms with 50–300 staff in your target hub.
That chain runs preschools, daycare and a nanny service, and has a corporate partnership arm[4]. Large employers build their own on-campus crèches or hire chains to run them. Co-working operators mostly offer no childcare at all. The gap is the mid-size tenant, which is too big to be exempt and too small for its own crèche, and sits in a building where a shared one is possible.
| Difficulty | Moderate (45/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹1.5–3 Cr |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
Fit-out and staffing come before revenue, and each site needs enough member firms to fill it. Getting a hub operator to give up ground-floor space is a long negotiation. And child safety has to be flawless from day one, with trained staff on every shift.
Yes. A crèche runs to labour-law standards and several local permits.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't use AI to watch children for safety or judge their development. Adults on the floor do that, and CCTV footage stays tightly limited.
Want to work out the AI layer for Toddlehall? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I like this for an operator with daycare or facilities experience and a landlord partner willing to share the risk. If you're hoping to build software then it's a poor fit. Before any fit-out, get letters of intent from enough firms in one building to fill 60% of seats.
The free Toddlehall validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the crèche-law and child-safety checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for HR heads and parents, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Toddlehall or something close to it? The make-or-break step is signing a hub landlord and enough tenant firms to fill the first site. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.