Novotorium's main office space in Langhorne. Novotorium is one of many local startup incubators attempting to differentiate itself.
If you have a startup in Philadelphia that has outgrown your local coffee shop, but doesn’t want an office or a storefront, well, you’re in luck.
In the last six months, the number of low-cost desks for technology startups, often coupled with mentorship and business services, has exploded — more than doubling by some counts. And, as you might expect, that growth has also sparked a debate: is the development of an infrastructure necessary in a maturing entrepreneurial market or is there a budding bubble of startups servicing other startups?
Let’s put them in three categories: (1) coworking, which puts community above all else and often creates a more diverse network of residents beyond traditional startups; (2) acceleration, which offers set, short-term housing and heavy mentorship, often in exchange for equity, before kicking their tenants out, and (3) incubation, which offers longer-term, if still temporary, housing, more passive support and voluntary education programming.
“In Philadelphia, we’re still establishing the process to create and scale business,” said Garret Melby, an old hand in the region’s investment and startup communities, one sunny afternoon in Love Park. “We have to see it shake out.”
The city already had examples in the past. The old-time crew includes Old City coworking powerhouse Independents Hall, which launched in 2007 and announced last week plans to expand again, Devnuts which opened in Northern Liberties two years later, the noted University City accelerator DreamIt Ventures and the newly morphed Good Company Group, led by Melby, as well as institutional incubators like the storied University City Science Center, the Drexel University-based Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship and others.
But the last six months has changed a lot, most notably in that third category of incubation, which can be seen as more passive and more competitive. Is this a sign of strength or of an impending collapse?
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