We’ve covered them since before they existed, but now “Factory”, Berlin’s new, vast tech campus, is taking shape. As builders adapt old factory buildings (an area which will cover 107,000 square feet or 10,000 square meters), the privately-funded initiative has announced that Mozilla will become an anchor resident in the facility, which plans to house a number of startups large and small. Jim Cook, CFO of Mozilla also confirmed that Mozilla will be hiring in Berlin.
Confirmed so far are the startups 6Wunderkinder, Four Sektor, Toast, Urge iO, Views, and local tech blog Silicon Allee. But the expanding SoundCloud team will take on a large swathe of the vast amount of space available, which will feature a basketball court, gallery, conference area, cafe and – last we heard – a swimming pool.
Located in the central Mitte district at the site of the former Oswald Brauerei building, Factory borders the former, and infamous, wall which divided East and West Berlin. Comprising of five stories and a total of five buildings, the Factory team hopes the campus will provide a new epicenter for Berlin’s startup scene, which has seen other co-working spaces rise such as Betahaus and Ahoy Berlin.
We spoke to Simon Schaefer, Factory co-founder and Angel Investor with JMES Investments which is backing the project back in April and visited the building site later on with our camera (see below).
As you can see it’s quite some project. Startups won’t have to give up equity to be based there, but they will be curated by existing tenants and the investors in the campus.
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