San Francisco-based AI insurance startup Corgi is bringing its popular chain of founder-focused cafes to London.
The space, located in Shoreditch’s Great Eastern Street, will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week from mid August, the startup’s London-based community lead Claudia Maggi tells Sifted.
According to its website, Corgi already operates two cafes in the US — in San Francisco and Atlanta — which host regular meetups for founders, investors and operators.
"London is the biggest startup ecosystem in Europe and one of the top few globally, so it was the obvious first stop outside the US," Maggi tells Sifted.
"Nico and Emily turned [the SF space] into a 24/7 café to give builders somewhere to work and hang out at any hour. London needs the same thing: there is a huge density of founders and operators here, but the community is scattered across offices and venues, with no obvious place to meet."
Corgi's cafe's menu boasts startup-inspired drinks like the ‘ElevenLatte’, in homage to London-based voice AI decacorn ElevenLabs. Maggi says they want to bring more startup collaboration drinks to their London menu.
The startup — which reports say was valued at $4bn last week, in its third round in eight weeks — gained notoriety across the pond for its seven-day work week policy.
Corgi’s new venue comes after a bumper first half of 2026 for London. According to Sifted data, startups in the city raised close to €17bn, over 50% more than the €10bn collected across the same period the previous year.
