How RocketSpace Is Building A ‘Hit Factory’ For Tech Startups

RocketSpace, the San Francisco co-working space for tech and new media startups, has attracted a strong set of tenants in the 14 months since it first opened its doors. Uber, Zaarly, Giftiki, Spotify, and GeekList are just a few of the more than 100 companies who have called RocketSpace home for a stretch of time in either in the past or present.

So TechCrunch TV stopped by RocketSpace’s four-story offices in San Francisco’s SOMA district to get a first-hand look at how exactly its ship is run. In the video embedded above, you can see footage of RocketSpace denizens at work and watch our interview with its founder and CEO Duncan Logan. He’s a really interesting person to talk to, so you should check out the interview in its entirety, but here is a sample of a few topics we touched on:

• Rules Of Engagement: To get a desk in RocketSpace, startups must meet certain criteria. They must be in the tech or new media space, have secured some outside funding, and have fewer than 30 employees. According to Logan, this is so that RocketSpace attracts a certain class of startups — early- to mid-stage companies with strong prospects for success. “Our objective is to be seen as a hit factory, so the next Twitters, the next Facebooks are coming out of RocketSpace,” Logan said.
• Ex-Pats Welcome, But Mingling Required: RocketSpace has developed a bit of a reputation for being diverse in terms of the national provenances of its startups (this may largely be because Logan himself is a native of Scotland.) But he actually has a hard rule that no more than a quarter of RocketSpace startups should hail from places outside the U.S. “The whole reason they’re coming here is to mix with Silicon Valley companies, and if it just becomes like the U.N. it defeats that purpose,” Logan said.
• Matchmaking Abounds: RocketSpace has become a destination not just for entrepreneurs, but for large corporations keen to check out the latest developments at tech’s grassroots levels. He explained it like this: “Instead of allowing the startups to sort of disrupt them in some regards, they want to come and partner with the startups. So we’ll bring in a corporate… they’ll tell us what they’re interested in, we’ll go out and find the startups that are working in that space, and arrange for them to meet. It’s kind of corporate dating.”

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Company: RocketSpace

Website: rocket-space.com

Launch Date: January 24, 2011

Startup. Blast off. RocketSpace is an accelerator for high-growth, seed-funded tech startups. We provide the fuel that every startup needs to accelerate: access to top talent, tier 1 venture capital, and blue-chip brands representing millions of potential customers. Our programs are focused on creating the perfect tech startup ecosystem: speakers & classes in our dedicated event space, services from the best startup service providers, and research & analysis covering over 10,000 startups worldwide representing the “what’s next next” in technology. Located in...

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Company: Wappwolf

Website: wappwolf.com

Launch Date: July 28, 2010

Funding: $1.2M

Wappwolf is building the next virtual filesystem on top of cloud services and cloud storages… iBeam.it changes the way content is being shared today. Create a beam to a watched folder/album and let your followers choose where to follow your stuff. Share It Your Way | Follow It Their Way The first product was the Wappwolf Automator for Dropbox followed by other cloud storages. Wappwolf automates your tasks in the cloud. It connects your Dropbox, G Drive or Box to other web-services, and performs an...

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Company: Brightpearl

Website: brightpearl.com

Launch Date: 2007

Funding: $5M

Brightpearl, formerly known as Pearl, develops a leading end-to-end web based solution for SMEs and growing businesses that provides fully integrated: • Accounting • CRM and marketing • Inventory management • Sales order management • Ecommerce including Magento and eBay integration • Purchasing • Point of sale and more It is also designed to integrate seamlessly with key web services such as Gmail, Google Apps, MailChimp, Magento, eBay and many others. Brightpearl provides companies with a way to optimize their total business processes, generating significant time savings in...

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Website: FightMyMonster.com

Launch Date: January 1, 2011

Funding: $2.1M

Fight My Monster is the fastest growing online game for 8-12 boys in the UK. With over 1.3M players across the UK and North America, the company is quickly becoming the online destination for schoolboys everywhere. Described by some as “Pixar meets Pokemon”, it has exploded in schoolyards with the average player spending almost 40mins per session. The game is a free-to-play trading card game which can be accessed from any browser at http://www.fightmymonster.com. We recommend that adults be...

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