Ever thought of setting up office in Copenhagen? Sure you have (at least once): Copenhagen is not only a lovely, welcoming city, it’s also got quite the buzzing and constantly growing start-up ecosystem.
And if you hadn’t though much of it until now, the arrival of the city’s latest brand new start-up co-working space, the Copenhagen Rainmaking Loft, will surely make Copenhagen worth your consideration.
Opened on the 1st of March, the Copehangen Rainmaking Loft is the third Rainmaking co-working space of its kind, the other two being the original London office and the second-in-line Berlin Loft. After just over a few weeks in full operation, the Copenhagen office currently houses roughly 320 entrepreneurs, or 30 start-ups, in a 3000 square meter former naval facility by the Danish capital’s harbour, in Holmen.
Amongst the colourful bunch of young, Scandinavian resident businesses you’ll find companies like Athliit, the airbnb equivalent of sport experiences; online justice platform Swiftcourt; crowdfunding tool Raizers; Snapchat-specific analytics platform Snaplytics; and self-development app design crew AppMonk (and many, many more).
But it’s not just start-ups who have made the Rainmaking Loft their home: Copenhagen’s tech startup newsletter and event organizer CPHFTW, the 60 investors large Business Angels Copenhagen (BAC), and presence from Rainmaking’s own offspring Startupbootcamp can also be found from the Loft’s spacious halls.
“The regional entrepreneur scene used to be for entrepreneurs only. I’ve been looking for a place, where there is room for the investors as well as the guy coming in off his street with a skateboard and a crazy idea”, said BAC spokesperson Kim Tosti.
Representation has arrived from all sectors you could say.
“We want to create a full ecosystem here and that demands a range of different players. All the contacts you need as a promising start-up to develop your potential and succeed globally,” explains Managing Director at Rainmaking Loft, Kristian Justesen.
It’s clear the Rainmaking Loft won’t be your usual Copenhagen-based co-working space: Apart from just providing its resident start-ups in-house services like a hotel room, an arcade hall, and a coffee shop (as well as a pretty smooth internet connection I hear), the Loft aims to be a place where young entrepreneurs will learn from more established ones; and where bridges between start-ups and other sectors, like research universities, politicians, and media leaders, are built. Host talks, seminars, and workshops with the aims of promoting knowledge of the role tech startups should play in society are under way.
“Copenhagen has not had that kind of platform before”, says Justesen.
The Loft makes one think along the lines of entrepreneurism meets socialism, which is well exemplified by the original Rainmaking founders, who apparently share returns from their own startups. Mutual interest seems to be high up in Rainmaking priorities. “Shared risk, shared reward”, as Justesen puts it.
There’s also a presence of transparency. The Copehangen Loft’s structure illustrates this with open floors and glass walls between the team rooms; but it’s not just physical transparency and sharing mentality: according to Justesen, the Loft facilitates partnerships with startups and companies in need of fresh thinking and aims to connect entrepreneurs with interesting VC’s and angels in Northern Europe.
“In a crowded field of shared spaces I think Rainmaking Loft can stand out by expanding the ecosystem and in terms of scale we are unique in a regional context. With 320 entrepreneurs in the house and an event capacity for 400 people, we can serve as a general port of entry to the Scandinavian tech community”, Justensen says. And it’s not exactly a surprise Copenhagen was chosen, as the city, apart from a gate to the Scandinavia, also happens to be home.
“We chose Copenhagen, because we love the city. This is where we have built our first startups and have friends and family. Also it was natural to add a Nordic outpost to the Rainmaking Loft network that already includes hubs in Berlin and London. One of our strengths is that a seat in Copenhagen connects you to your peers (and VC’s and angels) in the other cities. Every resident membership is an international one.”
So, in conclusion, for a start-up weighing possible benefits of moving in, the Copenhagen Rainmaking Loft will work as an access point to the local ecosystem in its broadest sense: VC’s, investors, corporates, political stakeholders and media, the forefront of technical innovation from universities and other research institutions. This only adds up to the promises Justensen makes of the great food and drink supplied by the in-house canteen and coffee shop; the available hotel room for that occasional day trip UK developer; the game room (although this isn’t what you’re moving in for, hopefully); as well as the event services for a product launch for example (of which the catering, music etc. can be taken care of by the house).
The prices for the Rainmaking Loft Copenhagen go as follows: Flex desk off peak (from 5pm Monday-Sunday), 950 DKK/month; Flex desk peak (9am – 5pm, Monday-Friday), 1450 DKK/month; Fixed seat, 1950 DKK/month; Team room, 15,000 DKK/month (fits up to 10 people). Membership also grants free access to all of Rainmaking’s hubs (currently in London and Berlin).
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