RocketSpace currently provides plug-and-play office space for 130 startups and their 600 employees at a per-person, per-month rate. It lets founders concentrate on their businesses while RocketSpace handles leases, security, bandwidth, firewalls and other office hassles. Its relationships with venture capitalists and corporate accelerators have kept at least one of its residents securing funding every week, and it runs inspiring events featuring speakers like Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla.

CEO Duncan Logan told me in a meeting today that one of RocketSpace’s biggest problems is that due to space contraints, “we kick out companies when they get to 3o employees.” Fast-rising startups like Uber, Spotify, Kabam, and Leap Motion have all gotten the boot. It’s also receiving far more qualified applicants than it has room for. RocketSpace needed more, well, space. Meanwhile, its current real estate is literally about to get steamrolled. Tomorrow, the city of San Francisco will announce RocketSpace’s current 181 Fremont location will be demolished to make way for a new Transbay Tower transportation hub.

So after a year of searching, tomorrow RocketSpace will announce the lease of a 50,000 sq. ft. space just north of Market Street at 180 Sansome. Eventually it hopes to take over that whole tower. But RocketSpace Suites is just the start of its expansion. It’s currently looking at a 90,000 sq. ft. Bay Area space to replace the Fremont home it will have to vacate. Logan says it will be able to host 2,000 people in its combined 140,000 sq. ft. space. By the end of 2013 RocketSpace plans to have added a London space. And even though it’s completely bootstrapped, after that it’s eying Tel Aviv, Berlin, and Vancouver for additional locations.

Logan says RocketSpace aspires to become an “innovation campus” that he calls a “Stanford for startups.” He explains that “young companies are like young people. They’re a product of their environment. We can build the best possible environment for startups.” By surrounding themselves with similarly ambitious makers, Logan believes startups can be more creative and productive.

Just watch out for your neighbors poaching your engineers.

• ROCKETSPACE

Startup. Blast off.

RocketSpace is an accelerator for high-growth, seed-funded tech startups. We provide the fuel that every startup needs to accelerate: access to top talent, tier 1 venture capital, and blue-chip brands representing millions of potential customers.

Our programs are focused on creating the perfect tech startup ecosystem: speakers classes in our dedicated event space, services from the best startup service providers, and research analysis covering over 10,000 startups worldwide representing the “what’s next next” in technology.

Located in…

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Article source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/28/rocketspace-suites/

Jim Gardner
Managing Editor- San Francisco Business Times

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In a city of bearded hipsters and coder geeks in T-shirts and jeans, the sartorial world of commercial real estate brokers in downtown San Francisco is a throwback: Overwhelmingly male, dark suits, ties, as clean-cut and clean-shaven as season one of “Mad Men.”

But if you walked around downtown in November, you may have noticed brokers letting their facial-hair freak flags fly. On corners and building lobbies along California and Sansome streets were men with Fu Manchus, handlebars, horseshoes, even some Salvador Dalis.

San Francisco’s real estate community, led by John Cornuke of TIAA-CREF and David Churton of Jones Lang LaSalle, were national leaders in Movember, a mustache-growing event that raises awareness and funds for men’s health issues. This year Cornuke’s Team Nuclear raised $180,000, more than any other U.S. group.

This year Cornuke, who lost his father to cancer, favored a beefy Goose Gossage mustache. “I looked like a bad guy from the ‘Sons of Anarchy.’”

Churton, who lost both his parents to cancer, went for a slightly creepy “English squire” look.

Churton said next year Team Nuclear will try to get participation from other Bay Area brokerages. In the meantime, a bit of smack: “The brokers in Silicon Valley were so concerned about their pretty facial looks that they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. I think next year we will have a stronger showing from our younger, handsomer colleagues to the south,” he said.

Movember raised $120.5 million across the world, 82 percent of which goes to mens health programs.

“There is nothing more humbling than growing a mustache, and nothing feels better than shaving it off,” said Cornuke.

Jim Gardner oversees print and online news coverage of the vibrant Bay Area economy.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2012/12/san-francisco-real-estate-brokers.html