#5 Nordic Co-working Spaces: D82

D82 is one of the latest additions to Sweden’s rising range of co-working spaces. The office is placed in the center of Stockholm in a newly renovated building. In D82 startups are secured office space, meeting rooms, space for relaxation and networking, and of course, what all hard working entrepreneurs need: good coffee!

D82 already holds many of Sweden’s most promising entrepreneurs working to grow their ideas and businesses quickly. Among these are Scrive, Hubplanner, Funrock, Inkopio and Tingent. With these surroundings D82 promises great conditions for success.

D82 – a blessing in disguise
The initiator behind D82 is Daniel Laurén. Daniel is an entrepreneur himself, an angel investor and besides this he is a venture partner in the Finnish VC Inventure. D82 actually emerged as a “side benefit” as Daniel’s own startup company Aoex (a talent solutions company red.) didn’t turn out just as planned.

“D82 is actually an initiative based on a startup I was running five years ago. However, LinkedIN changed the market quite a lot, so our business model erupted. At that time we were about 50 employees and had taken up a 600 square meters office space in central Stockholm and one in Lulea. As the marked turned down for Aoex I had to do something else with the office space” – Daniel Laurén

With all of this excess space and due to his own role as investor combined with a great network he decided to do something meaningful with the space.

“I decided that, since I had a couple of startups in my investment portfolio – why not make this start up space and sub-let to companies that have the need?” – Daniel Laurén

A need to do something and give back to the startup community
According to Daniel the startup environment of Stockholm could use some more help, and he encourages much more coworking spaces like for instance D82 and SUP46.

 “The problem is that if you are a startup and you go to the real estate or the broker they mostly only offer huge spaces and wants you to sign 3-5 years contracts, they want you to have solid financials and they want you to pay a deposit which blocks part of your startup money. So it is really not good at all for startups in terms of working in Stockholm.” – Daniel Laurén

This is also why the various solutions offered by D82 are pushed to the limit price wise.

Room for everyone
For Daniel Laurén one of the most important things about D82 is that there is room for everyone. Thus the type of startups qualified for admission are unrestricted.

“D82 is not only for tech, media or internet startups. I don’t want the startup culture to be like a club where, if you don’t have the right clothes or the right looks you can’t be part of it.” – Daniel Laurén

This idea is based on an overall stance, that the startup environment should be for everyone and not be tied up to specific industries or trends.

“I want everybody to start companies. I think this is the best you can do for you self and for your country. Hopefully it will be the best thing you have done in your life. So I don’t want a culture that is excluding. I think the idea of coworking spaces is really good but I think you have synergies with different companies and not just similar ones. It should include people who want to start companies – not people who want to start the right companies. Besides, startups tend to pivot maybe two or three times and start with being something and then becoming something else.” – Daniel Laurén

Instead of being industry specific the companies admitted a space is based on what will work out practically at the given time. This is done in order to ensure a concordant and conflict free environment.

“Say that there is a startup that needs to sell something and therefore need to call customers all the time. Then it would not work to place them next to a small developing company. You also need to find some sort of mixture between the culture of the company and the founders of the company.” – Daniel Laurén

Various solutions to suit all needs
Whether you are a sole holder or a larger company there is a solution for you. Specifically D82 offers the following office packages:

• Hotseat: 2.500 SEK/month
• Solid place: 3.500-4.100 SEK/month
• Private room: 10.000 SEK/month

Interested in becoming part of this awesome coworking space? Just go to www.d82.se and fill out the short application form at the bottom of the page.