WeWork Labs SF

WeWork Labs, the coworking space for early-stage startups, which moved to 17,000 square foot space in March, is planning on doubling its size. By July, the incubatorish offices will occupy both the third and fourth floor of 175 Varick Street. Applications are welcome for June, but it's already at capacity now with more than 100 startups, including Longreads, Fitocracy, Scrollkit, and Material Wrld.

As suspected, WeWork Labs also officially announced its expansion into San Francisco, eWork cofounder Matt Shampine told Betabeat. The two-floor space, at 156 2nd Street, will hold about 100 people and open its doors May 14th with applications open immediately. Three directors have already been named: Kaitlin Pike, a RallyPad Mentor and the "charming host of #sfnightowls," Seth Blank, founder and CEO of Trove, and Dave Nugent, a freelance Drupal developer who runs the SF JavaScript Meetup and GamesJS.

For those of you trying to keep track of the company's seemingly-unstoppable coworking juggernaut, WeWork Labs is the early-stage arm of WeWork, a larger coworking network that offers boutique office space to any startup in five locations--four in New York and one in L.A--and raised $6.85 million in January.

But where WeWork companies are typically in the one-15 employee range, WeWork Labs focuses on the one-three employee range. Through sponsors like Microsoft, Pepsi, JWT and WilmerHale, WeWork Labs is able to offer cheaper space ($300 month-to-month) and access to services like office hours with WilmerHale or flat packages on, say, financial advice for raising a seed round. Organizations like SkillShare are free to host classes there as long as the Labs's members can attend.

"If we have extra resources, like money, we just stick it back into the community," said Mr. Shampine, describing WeWork Labs. "For instance, one of our startups wanted to have an event during Internet Week, so we got Pepsi to throw in the food and drink and her startup is a beer startup so she got the alcohol sponsor and then we helped by throwing in money for cups and napkins and plates and stuff like that."

WeWork Labs doesn't offer investment or take equity. "We think of it more as a residency in a lot of ways because it has all the resources you need in it and you’re surrounded by people in similar situations," said Mr. Shampine.

With its new SF outpost, WeWork Labs can be an asset to bicoastal or peripatetic young founders. "We’ve already had a few startups that started in New York like Tout and Idonethis," said Mr. Shampine. "They both went over to California for accelerators and ended up staying over there—but now they both moved into the WeWork building. It’s all about keeping the community and the family growing and everyone together."

To further support the needs of young startups, WeWork is offering healthcare to all its members--not just Labs residents. "Prices are as low as $360/month and the coverage is good," Mr. Shampine wrote on his personal Tumblr.

The company, which rents office and desk space to startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses for as low as $275 a month is already up and running in California with their San Francisco office.

Mr. Neumann told Betabeat that this second round of capital was raised over a short period of time and explained that WeWork has had had various investment offers, but are picky about who they choose to work with.

Mr. Neumann didn't want to reveal too much about what WeWork has in store, but offer a few clues.

"The beginning of it is a simple member management system [that will] help members manage their interaction within the WeWork space—but its going to become a lot more than that," he explained. "It's going to become a portal for entrepreneurs, startups, freelancers and small businesses.

As Betabeat reported earlier, WeWork Labs, the 50-person incubator/common workspace experiment, will move to 175 Varick St. where they will have 17,000 sq. ft. of office space. The dramatic size increase, will be a huge upgrade from their current 3,000 sq. ft. office and will allow them to grow to up to 250 members.

Mr. Neumann said the new L.A. location, at 7083 Hollywood Blvd. is backed by San Francisco's IO Ventures and will be home to a movie technology incubator.

WeWork's space in L.A. and at 175 Varick are both slated to open on Feb. 15, but Mr. Neumann said the opening of the new space in SoHo may not be ready until March 1.

The company, which began at 154 Grand St. in Feb. 2010, is nearly two years old.

Too many techies, not enough desk.

Leave it to Observer friend and alum Laura Kusisto to rectify the cold shoulder The Wall Street Journal has been turning toward Silicon Alley's very own co-working movement with some big news, potentially of the world historical variety.

WeWork has apparently locked down 74,000 sq. ft. on 175 Varick Street near the Holland Tunnel to give techie types a shared space away from home.  It boasts a ridonkulous 700 desks and all the proper startup accountrement: scooters, pool tables, and video games.  Guess you can only overhear startup chatter about scaling big so often before you have to attempt it yourself. Although in a space normally designed to house a law firm, it remains to be seen whether they can sustain the keep-it-nimble vibe.

WeWork's Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey locked down the space with the idea that the co-working scene has enough momentum now to support leases of  $150-$800 a month per desk. The high-end of that range sounds way rich for a startup's blood to us, but co-working isn't just limited to techie types anymore. Freelancers Union founder Sara Horowitz gives the paper a quote Philip K. Dick would be proud of, "Work is just increasingly becoming units of work, as opposed to careers."

But back to those 700 desks. The next biggest thing in the New York is Sunshine Suites claim to more than 500 desks at NoHo. And San Francisco's RocketSpace also has 500 desks. In a piece about the upcoming Coworking Europe Conference (yes, there is such a thing), Deskmag writes, "At 700 desks, WeWork will definitely be the biggest collaborative workspace in the world."

Suddenly General Assembly's rumored international expansion plans have some company.