Holy Startup! Swedes Convert Former Church Into A Center For Entrepreneurship
Swedish entrepreneurs can now start reaching for truly divine heights as a former Greek Orthodox Church in the city of Stockholm has been converted into a full-blown, multifunctional coworking space for startups.
The Entreprenörskyrkan (Entrepreneurs Church) hosts 300 square meters of open plan office space with two conference rooms, a telephone room and a small kitchen. For 3600 SEK a month (ex. VAT), startups receive everything from basic utilities to furniture, wireless broadband and cleaning, not to mention invaluable help and advice from fellow startups. The church currently houses 15 companies but there’s room for about 30 office slots altogether.
In addition to providing coworking space, the building serves as a venue for events such as TEDx, pitch evenings, parties and even the occasional wedding. Starting January 10th, the Entrepreneurs Church opens its doors for Startup Tuesdays, a weekly session that allows any startup to come and work at the co-working space for free from 9-16. You can register for Startup Tuesdays here.
Entreprenörskyrkan was originally founded out of necessity by Gustav Nisser, Jesper Lindmarker, Jesper Lejfjord and Petra Jonsson. All four, founders of their own respective startups, were looking for office space in Stockholm at the same time and the former church proved to be too good of an opportunity to pass by. The sheer size of the church prompted the group to convert the premises into a coworking space and thus Stockholm’s new center for entrepreneurship was born.
The overall concept of Entreprenörskyrkan is constantly evolving, but the center will always be guided by one underlying principle, "to have fun and play with ideas".
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Lovely building and idea. A bit too much modern white and glass for my tastes, when instead they could have retained more of the original church atmosphere, but still pretty sweet.
Awesome idea - reminds me of a church in Santa Barbara turned into a community center in the late 80s (happened to visit it in 1990 on my tour through the U.S.)
Cool! The auditorium seems particularly well suited for product evangelizing...
I'm helping to run the church and I'm very happy to hear you like it! We will also be arranging a TEDx-event the 13th of february in the church. See www.tedxvasastan.se
If anyone knows of any other "startup churches" we would love to get in touch and share experiences!
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