Soho is famous for many things.
It’s the creative epicentre of Europe’s most famous Media, Architecture, Design and Advertising agencies. Rumours say, it’s also a place for focused and fast accelerating startups.
The Garage is living proof – the brainchild of industry behemoths Sir John Hegarty (BBH Advertising) and Tom Teichman (Spark Ventures) – it’s a marriage of the best of two worlds.
Why have advertising and VC joined forces to open a startup space? We met Emma, The Garage Manager, to find out.
How is The Garage different from other coworking spaces?
We have a curated community here; everyone is hand-picked.
It’s not a place where you never get to meet anyone; there are no closed off rooms and collaboration in encouraged. Not only is it good for networking, but also idea sharing. When tech and creative companies live under one roof you get a really good synergy.
Tell us more about your accelerator programme!
We are now choosing different companies to invest in, so apply to incubator and coworking space here.
Ones that we have already invested in come here to work. We also invite companies that are on our radar… companies that we are still unsure of, yet find interesting – we offer them a space and so can get to know them before making the final decision. It’s equally important that they love working here too!
The Leviathans of Advertising meet the Behemoths of Venture Capital meet the Titans of Tech…
Sir John Hegarty, the Founder of BBH, has been central to the global advertising scene for decades working with brands such as Levi’s, Audi, Boddingtons, Lynx, British Airways and Johnnie Walker.
Tom Teichman is a founder and chairman of Spark Ventures a leading UK Venture Capital firm. His portfolio companies have already exited over £1 billion in IPOs on NASDAQ, LSE, AIM and via trade sales to Financial Times, France Telecom, Dell, Oracle and Thomson Corp. They started The Garage for a reason.
Everyone here sees is fortunate to see them on daily basis, can ask them to attend their events. The two founders have very well established businesses. They decided to collaborate and be able to have more control over how brands are built up rather than just investing in or just helping to advertise. We are all growing together.
Oh and also, seeing as they’re pretty successful, they make themselves available not just for mentoring on work… but also life 🙂
Who else can we meet here?
Apart from John and Tom, who have their offices here, we host CrowdCube, which is world’s first equity crowdfunding platform and a very friendly team happy to answer questions and help if needed! Many startups are moving in as we speak.
What do you think are the benefits of having different companies under one roof?
If you have a lot of similar companies it’s very competitive, it has a very different vibe. Allowing new and different people enabled you to find new opportunities for collaboration and cross-practices that you would never have discovered otherwise.
If someone is thinking of renting out a unused office space or desks, but is not sure what overall effect it will have, what would you advise?
Go for it!
If you need privacy, you will always find it. The most amazing thing is that people are usually very nice, they bring you up, contribute to the overall atmosphere. If your office is central, don’t worry, you’ll easily find tenants – that’s already an excellent reason to pick you.
Last question, where do you hang out?
THE BEST PLACE place to go is Groucho Soho. John and Tom always go there for lunch.
Thanks Emma! We’ll be sure to drive down to The Garage again soon 🙂
Are you still questioning the power of the sharing economy? Creative explosions and innovative solutions happen when we allow them to. Find the best coworking, shared and private offices to accelerate your ideas
Also, check out more reasons to work in Soho!
