March 19, 2019

Co-working startup WeWork announced its second lab dedicated to advancing innovation, which will center on food tech.

After a successful relaunch, WeWork Labs, an accelerator program operating under the WeWork brand, has grown to 49 locations across 32 global cities, including sites in Brazil, China, India, and Germany.

Now, following the establishment of an accelerator focused on advancing mining  in Brazil, the platform is turning its attention to fostering the future of food through food tech, with the launch of its next  platform, WeWork Food Labs.

Roee Adler, global head of WeWork Labs, said that focusing on food tech is a natural next step for the company that is dedicated to early-stage entrepreneurship and sustainability.

“Those ideas intersect at Food Labs,” said Adler. “How we approach food and sustainability today will have an impact on us for generations to come.”

“In a way, building a food startup is much more difficult than building startups in other areas,” added Adler. “Facilities can be expensive, equipment is required, [and] procurement of customer pipelines can be difficult.”

The accelerator will support the development of technologies that touch on a range of areas including agtech, consumer goods, supply chain management, AI, new products, distribution software, robotics, among others. At its initial location in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, it will provide a hub that integrates a custom R&D space, private dining room, pantry, merchandising area, an indoor-outdoor event space, a photo studio, a podcast studio, private offices and conference rooms, phone booths, a roof-top farm space, and a commercial kitchen. 

“We thought that if we could bring the best and the brightest food startups into one physical community and provide the facilities that they need, then something really interesting could happen,” says Adler.

The WeWork Food Labs will operate via two tracks. The first track will include between 40 and sixty food startups which will gain access to the Lab’s facilities, and the second track will use more stringent vetting to choose six to eight startups to participate in its five-month accelerator program beginning in October of this year. 

Led by food tech veteran Menacham Katz, the WeWork Food Lab will seed $1 million in equity investments, and is building a community of policy-makers, venture capitalists, and universities to help bring its participants innovations into reality. In addition participating startups will have access to vast numbers of potential customers through WeWork’s network of 400,000 members.

One initial partner includes Unovis Partners and its venture fund New Crop Capital, which is joining in the capacity to assess participating startups focused on sustainable and plant-based solutions for potential follow-on investment.

“We believe the broken global food system is ripe for innovation and large-scale disruption, and fixing it poses a vital economic and ethical imperative of our time,” said Dan Altschuler Malek, senior venture partner at New Crop Capital. “We are thrilled to partner with WeWork Food Labs and join their mission in powering the future of food.”

An advisory board is also being put in place consisting of educators, chefs, policymakers, and industry leaders, including food scholar and professor at New York University, Marion Nestle, and entrepreneur and founder of vegan fast-casual chain by CHLOE, Samantha Wasser.

-Lynda Kiernan