individual investors and venture firms, and partners from firms like Norwest Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Sequoia Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Accel Partners often get a “first look” at Plug and Play companies.
179 11th St., Third Floor, San Francisco
The Reactor is home to a variety of Web, software, and design firms. It has 2,000 square feet of office space with private desks and a 3,500-square foot common area, including a conference room and full kitchen. One intriguing recent resident was Bynamite, which built a Firefox and Chrome plugin that you can use to see what types of information Internet advertisers are able to glean about you.
795 Folsom Street
1 Market Street, Spear Tower, 36th Floor
201 Mission Street, 12th Floor (opening early 2012)
Regus says it owns the world’s largest network of flexible working and co-working centers. The Folsom Street location, in the same building with Twitter, provides a high-tech atmosphere with an attached cyber-café. Rates start at $25 per day.
181 Fremont St., San Francisco
$385 to $550 per month
Opening its doors on February 17, RocketSpace offers shared workspaces customized for teams of 1 to 30 people. It has a dedicated space called the “Mir Project” specifically for tech, media, and gaming companies—but they have to be graduates of Bay Area venture incubators such as AngelPad, Dogpatch Labs, 500Startups, Kicklabs, I/O Ventures, and Y Combinator.
Sandbox Suites
1900 Addison St., Suite 200, Berkeley
404 Bryant Street, San Francisco
$50-$1950 per month
[Corrected 2/21/11 with input from Sandbox Suites] With two locations in San Francisco and one in Berkeley, Sandbox Suites is one of only two coworking chains in the Bay Area (Plug and Play Tech Center being the other). In addition to open coworking areas like those found at most other coworking spaces, the organization offers private rooms set up for 1 to 6 people. Members are free to use space at all three locations. Sandbox Suites also offers 12 meeting rooms across three three locations for hourly rental by members or non-members.
[Update 8/5/11] Sandbox Suites is adding a South Park office in the startup-infested SoMa neighborhood. Here’s the announcement: “Set to open September 7, Sandbox Suites South Park will serve as a nexus for startups and independent professionals looking to establish a presence in the bustling SOMA neighborhood. Located at 404 Bryant St. on the corner of Second Street, the modern 8,500 square foot coworking space will be the company’s fourth location in the Bay Area, adding to its successful locations in SOMA, Union Square and Berkeley.”
12 South 1 St., Suite 318, San Jose
Semantic Seed, set up in 2008 by the founders of Urban Technology Ventures and Breakthrough Ventures, calls itself a hybrid co-working space and startup accelerator. Like classic venture incubators, it provides tenants with mentorship, but unlike other incubators, it doesn’t require an equity stake. Heads up: thanks to its location in San Jose’s Enterprise Zone, Semantic Seed companies are eligible for big tax breaks.
SOMAcentral
153 Townsend St.
SOMAcentral isn’t really a classic coworking space, but rather a couple floors of very startup-friendly offics and cubicles in a modern office building. Offices with windows go for $1,500 per month, and bullpen areas and offices without windows go for $1,000 per month, according to Daniel Odio of PointAbout, one of the startups renting space there. Offices fit four to nine people. VentureHacks has an office there, as do Rapportive, Twylah, CoTweet, and StageIt.
1261 Howard St., San Francisco
Cloud Nine Media is a provider of advertising and sponsorship opportunities for public Wi-Fi networks. The company has a large workspace in SoMa and is looking to rent some of it out to “creative, entrepreneurial people and small companies long on ideas but short on desk space.” Cloud Nine’s Lauren Oliver writes: “We are a fully operational small company, not just a coworking space (we just happen to be operating in a very large space). We’re currently looking for 6-12 people to join us.” Cloud Nine is asking $375/month for shared 8-foot desks and $500/month for single desks.
806 Winslow Ave., Redwood City
Studio G is a new invitation-only business accelerator and coworking facility founded by technology pundit, consultant, and conference producer Chris Shipley. Offering “drop-in” space rather than permanent desks, Studio G has many of the features of a venture incubator: “We help companies understand where they are on the road to success, focus their strategies, execute on their business plan, and credibly connect them [with] the investors, partners, customers and service providers that will help their businesses grow,” the organization’s site says.
268 14th Street, Oakland
11:00 am – 7:00 pm weekdays
$200 per month
Located in a former storefront in downtown Oakland, Tech Liminal was founded by Anca Mosoiu, an MIT graduate and Oakland native who’s written software for Razorfish, Sony, Juniper Networks, and Cisco Systems. The facility offers a basic desk and chair with Internet access for $5 per hour, $25 per day, or $200 per month. Configurable desks accommodate one, two, or more people. There’s also a conference room with room for up to 16 people that can be rented for $50 per hour or $400 per day.
