Berlin startup campus Factory — home to 4,500 members and 150 startups — will close the biggest of its two locations in the city in April.
Since 2018, the startup campus has been a staple of Berlin’s startup community, offering office and coworking space, startup programmes and events across two campuses in Berlin and one in Hamburg, which opened in 2021.
In an email to members sent yesterday, Factory announced that its main location at Görlitzer Park, a 150,000sq ft space, will be closing as its lease has not been renewed.
It’s hoping that members will transfer to its other location in Berlin Mitte, which is currently undergoing “major renovations”, Zino Soyka, Factory Berlin's CEO, tells Sifted.
Factory was unable to inform tenants any earlier than this week, Soyka adds: “This has been a long and laboured negotiation that lasted over six months under NDA that is truthfully still not finalised with the building owners.”
Coworking is out, clubhouse is in
For the past year, Factory's original Berlin campus in Mitte has been closed to members. It reopened to members at the start of the month, and can currently accommodate just 200 of them. It will be able to house 500 members after renovations.
The revamped site will have “a clubhouse design concept where members can work, network, and party”, a new restaurant and after-hours bar, says Soyka.
It’s offering a 50% discount on memberships for existing members between April and August to “ease the transition” back to the Mitte location.
Factory told Sifted no layoffs were made or are planned in light of the move.
