The Hub is the world’s largest network of co-working spaces, with venues at more than 40 locations worldwide, and 100 more coming soon. At its most recently-launched branch in Tokyo, a ‘Spark Plug’ meet-up event was held yesterday. Five startups pitched their ideas to an enthusiastic audience.
Hub Tokyo was officially launched on February 11th of this year. I’ve met with some of the people behind the co-working space, but I visited the venue for the first time just yesterday. Most Hub locations around the world are located in the very heart of a given city, typically in a nicely designed or renovated building. But this Tokyo branch is surprisingly a 10-minute walk from Meguro station on Tokyo’s central Yamanote line, a cozy space set up in a former print factory.
The venue’s co-founder, Shingo Potier de la Morandière, explains:
Unlike our other locations in Europe or the rest of the world, we need to pay much more to rent a venue here in Tokyo. Even with some sponsorships from big companies, it’s very hard to make our business sustainable and keep operations running. However, we are really keen to help Japanese entrepreneurs connect to the global community. We’ll intensify interactive community-based activities with our global network, including person-to-person exchanges with foreign startups.
Hopefully we can see more great work coming out of this space in the future. But for now, let’s hear about the five startups that pitched at this Spark Plug event.
Website: getgamba.com
Pitched by: Masahiro Morita
Some of our readers may recall that we featured this startup in our recent coverage of Samurai Venture Summit.
Gamba is a corporate communication platform that facilitates the submission of daily reports. It has deployed short status message input on its business communication platform, which helps office workers share what they are doing with colleagues and management. Interestingly, the app is not only used among SMEs or startups but also bigger companies.
Competitors in this space include Chatwork, Co-work, and Talknote.
Hub Tokyo was officially launched on February 11th of this year. I’ve met with some of the people behind the co-working space, but I visited the venue for the first time just yesterday. Most Hub locations around the world are located in the very heart of a given city, typically in a nicely designed or renovated building. But this Tokyo branch is surprisingly a 10-minute walk from Meguro station on Tokyo’s central Yamanote line, a cozy space set up in a former print factory.
The venue’s co-founder, Shingo Potier de la Morandière, explains:
Unlike our other locations in Europe or the rest of the world, we need to pay much more to rent a venue here in Tokyo. Even with some sponsorships from big companies, it’s very hard to make our business sustainable and keep operations running. However, we are really keen to help Japanese entrepreneurs connect to the global community. We’ll intensify interactive community-based activities with our global network, including person-to-person exchanges with foreign startups.
Hopefully we can see more great work coming out of this space in the future. But for now, let’s hear about the five startups that pitched at this Spark Plug event.
Website: getgamba.com
Pitched by: Masahiro Morita
Some of our readers may recall that we featured this startup in our recent coverage of Samurai Venture Summit.
Gamba is a corporate communication platform that facilitates the submission of daily reports. It has deployed short status message input on its business communication platform, which helps office workers share what they are doing with colleagues and management. Interestingly, the app is not only used among SMEs or startups but also bigger companies.
Competitors in this space include Chatwork, Co-work, and Talknote.
RSS Feed
