US Landing Pad taking off
Intrepid Kiwis are taking a place in San Francisco's tech hub.
Friday, July 29 2011 || News || BY Unlimited
The San Francisco co-working hub opened in early July and it's where it needs to be - the South of Market (Soma) district, where big global tech companies like Zynga, Twitter, Google and Zendesk already have a presence.
Software firms Xero, Visfleet, Jade and magnetic resonance imaging company Magritek are the first to sign up for space and will be followed by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, says former Sonar6 CEO John Holt, who is overseeing the Landing Pad’s development.
The project's supporters want to offer a hassle free US home for New Zealand businesses, then introduce them to supporters’ key networks, Holt reckons.
“We [Sonar6] went to the US in 2006 and establishing a base was quite an onerous task. We established in Santa Clara with a serviced office and we spent a significant amount of time going through the basics and that was a diversion to key things like generating sales and establishing a commercial base. The Landing Pad is certainly not an incubator and it’s not a serviced office facility. It provides desks and facilities but the idea is we’re bringing people together with a Kiwi flavour.”
There are 20 desks with an option for more and companies pay monthly for hot desks or permanent space.
Among the private backers are K1W1, Jasmine Investments, Movac and Evander Holdings (which holds the biggest stake in IT services company Datacom).
The Soma district has “taken on a life of its own” as a tech company's alternative to Silicon Valley, says Holt.
“A lot of cloud and software as a service companies are realising Soma took off a couple of years ago as a funky residential space and a lot of young tech talent started moving out of the valley and into the city for a bit more lifestyle. It’s a massive shift of focus around software tech and internet software tech. We’re right in the hub of that.”
The Landing Pad team has an internal web page and wiki underway to help businesses learn about the city and ways of doing business there.
It plans an official launch event in Wellington next month.
The Booster Seat 2011 competition, created by learning management systems company Litmos' founder Rich Chetwynd and marketing manager Nicole Fougere, offers the chance to win space at the Landing Pad.
