Collision 8 hopes to foster business by matchmaking its co-working space members.
Collision 8 hopes to foster business by matchmaking its co-working space members.
Even though he keeps an office at Boat Quay, an address that will turn many a start-up green with envy, Sushobhan Mukherjee would rather spend every other afternoon working off a laptop in a space shared with dozens of other people.
And why wouldn’t he? His midday rendezvous, touted as a “collaborative innovation workspace”, boasts trimmings such as a bookcase- flanked lounge, hydroponic micro-farms and a marble- topped bar set against views to die for.
Plus, the 8,600 sq ft Collision 8 in High Street Centre is the location the Singapore permanent resident finds most conducive for discussing myriad business ideas with like-minded others. “Our parents had one cubicle and one job,” the entrepreneur explains.
“The openness of Collision 8 helps me think. It creates a new and novel physical and mental space for both networking and working.”
While co-sharing workspaces are hardly new, what sets the two-month-old establishment apart is its emphasis on what its co- founder and scion of the family behind the Woh Hup real estate conglomerate Michelle Yong calls “engineered serendipity”.
So, besides the hardware – Collision 8 supplies members with a full suite of hot desks, dedicated desks, private offices and conference rooms – it actively profiles members and matches them whenever and wherever their business needs align.
It also organises a busy calendar of events such as corporate innovation exchanges and boot camps to foster socialising and networking.
For this reason, it endears itself to a healthy number of start-ups, investors and facilitators. Respectively, these include Carousell and Ninja Van; Nest and Innosight Ventures; and Next Money and Slush. In total, there are around 100 paid members, and a further 600 form an invited community.
They are also doubtlessly attracted by the credentials of the other co-founder, John Tan. He sits on both sides of the fence, being an entrepreneur himself – one of his businesses is run out of a room here – and also a veteran angel investor and partner in two funds with a combined portfolio of 70-plus start-ups in Asia and the US.
He says: “We didn’t want to do just another co-working space. We wanted to build a community where like-minded people mingle, share ideas and work together. “Collision 8 is a melting pot where ideas collide.”
Indeed, Yong and Tan are setting up a cafe on the ground floor with the Da Paolo group. They also have plans to buy another five floors in High Street Centre for Collision 8’s expansion, making this space the one to watch.
#08-08, 1 North Bridge Road.
