Hey, dear reader!
Hamburg wants to spend €40.4M on the Hammerbrooklyn pavilion and turn it into the city's central startup center. Once a project with high hopes turned into empty hallways.
The history of the building is quite outstanding.
It all began in Milan in 2015 where the building which now sits at Stadtdeich was originally the USA Pavilion at Expo Milano. After the Expo, it was dismantled and travelled across the Alps to Hamburg, its new home.
The original concept was a public-private showcase for digital transformation including the city's smart-mobility programme. Apart from the digital pavilion, two more buildings were planned for the site: Treetop Tower and Big Market, both still under construction.
In 2021, Factory Berlin, a famous startup campus, moved in as a tenant which was their first location outside of Berlin. Their pitch was connecting both ecosystems and making Hamburg into the next startup hotspot.
And yet besides rare events like iF Demo Day or NCA Innovation Day, the few times I went there the building stood largely empty apart from a handful of tenants. That pitch never materialised.
After 3 years, Factory Berlin announced closing their massive campus at Görlitzer Park as part of a major downsizing and restructuring strategy. Hamburg goes the same way: by the end of October, Factory ends all campus memberships and fixed coworking desks in both cities.
Nevertheless, Hamburg wants to give this location a second chance, a very expensive one though.
To justify the economics behind the decision, the Senate bets that if the center were to keep even just one additional successful startup in Hamburg on average each year, it would generate 106 million euros in additional value over 20 years. Although the math behind it wasn’t explained in the official proposal.
Is the investment in a once failed project worthwhile? Time will tell but we've seen how it can go south too many times. Is this time going to be different?
P.S. While doing my research, I learned a ton about Hammerbrook in the newsletter by a local journalist, Felix Horstmann. Check out his incredible piece on Factory Hammerbrooklyn.
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Save the Date 🗓️
The events I'm most excited about in the weeks ahead.
Monday, September 21
Women Who Build the Future (English) — Talks and connections for everyone from tech newcomers to experienced builders, in the Women Techmakers edition.
Thursday, September 24
Climate Coffee (English) — Meet the people building, funding and supporting climate tech, in the Hamburg edition of the global series.
Monday, September 28
Co-working Day (English) — found's own monthly co-working day for founders, operators and everyone tired of working from home.
Wednesday, September 30
AI Mavericks: Launch Event (German) — Launch of the House of AI and etribes community for the people getting AI running inside real German companies.
Thursday, October 1
Resilience Forum Vol. II (German) — Dig into China's tech race and the role of drones in modern defence, with the deep tech and security crowd.
Weekly Picks 📍
All the events on my radar for this week.
This Issue’s Gem 💎
Thursday, September 17
Gründergeist Awards Ceremony (German) — Watch Hamburg's top three startups take the stage, with investors and operators in the room.
AI Everywhere 🤖
Tuesday, September 15
AI in Action: From the Factory Floor to the Leadership Boardroom (English/German) — Hear where AI is genuinely running in production across industries, from the leaders who put it there.
Wednesday, September 16
AIRL: Offline Get Together (German) — Meet the people watching AI reshape design, film, coding and music, away from the timeline.
Tech Bite 🧑💻
Tuesday, September 15
Ein SEO Use Case, end to end (German) — Follow one SEO case from the original problem all the way to the result, with the practitioners who ran it.
Thursday, September 17
MAKERs' Breakfast (German) — Coffee and rolls with the people actually building drones, robots and sensors, no pitch and no panel.
Sunday, September 20
agentic coffee (English) — Talk through what you are building with AI agents over Sunday morning coffee, in the monthly edition.
Sunday, September 20
Claude Code Sunday for Beginners (English) — Trade Claude Code workflows over coffee in a relaxed session aimed at people just getting started.
Startup 101 🔨
Tuesday, September 15
TEAM OR COLLISION COURSE: Who do I work with and how? (German) — Get deliberate about who you build with and how you set the collaboration up, before it becomes a problem.
Wednesday, September 16
HOLII Kickoff Event (German) — Opening of the Holistic Impact Incubator, for founders whose idea is meant to create social value.
Thursday, September 17
Business Plan Workshop: Financial Planning in Practice (German) — Build the financial plan behind your business plan in a full day of hands-on work and direct feedback.
Friday, September 18
build fridays (English/German) — Work on your own startup alongside other founders doing the same, and end the week with something shipped.
Get Inspired ✨
Thursday, September 17
Gründergeist Awards Ceremony (German) — Watch Hamburg's top three startups take the stage, with investors and operators in the room.
Thursday, September 17
FEMALE MAKER CLUB: circular futures (German) — Ask the organisers everything about the Female Maker Challenge before you put an application in.
Saturday, September 19
SPECIAL: Founders Running Club x Young Founders Network (English) — Collab edition of the weekly run, with the Young Founders Network joining for the networking half.
Sunday, September 20
Founders & Friends: Meet, Connect & Grow (English) — Spend a Sunday afternoon swapping notes with founders and the people building alongside them.
Open Calls 📣
Grants, programs, and opportunities waiting for your application.
4YFN Awards 2027 — For startups with a live product on the market, incorporated no earlier than September 2019. €20,000 cash for the winner, €2,500 for each of the five finalists, and €1,500 plus a free exhibition pod at MWC Barcelona for everyone in the Top 20. No application fee. Deadline: October 26.
Prototype Fund — For developers building open-source software in Germany. Up to €47,500 for a solo developer and up to €95,000 for a team over six months, non-dilutive, funded by the federal research ministry. Applications open October 1, deadline November 30.
Job Picks 💼
3 open roles worth a look this week.
Full-Stack Engineer at RENEWA, a climate startup handling energy audits, retrofits and subsidy paperwork for homeowners.
Product Manager at adjoe, an adtech company building monetization and growth tools for mobile apps.
Senior Product Designer at Sidekick Health, a health startup whose doctor-prescribed apps treat obesity and support breast cancer patients.
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That’s a wrap!
Check out the tune of the week from the found playlist
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See you next week,
Kyrylo from found Hamburg