Amsterdam-based Knowork, a community platform for coworking spaces, incubators and innovation programs, announced today that it has raised a small €25k funding round from the student-led venture capital fund ASIF Ventures, with the potential for a €100k follow on round. ASIF exclusively invests startups founded by students or recent-graduates, and has already made investments in Dyme and Project Cece, with Knowork being the latest addition to its portfolio.
Knowork offers coworking spaces a white-label community engagement and management platform. With its first capital injection, Knowork plans to further develop the product and become the go-to platform for smaller communities.
After taking home first prize from the University of Amsterdam’s Minor Entrepreneurship in 2017, Greg Marschall decided to pursue a career as a full-time entrepreneur. Building on his existing idea, Marschall noticed a trend in the co-working scene. “As coworking is becoming more mainstream, managers face the challenge of creating a loyal and engaged community around their spaces and programs,” he said. “With Knowork, members can easily tap into the entire community, fostering a new sense of belonging and brand affinity.”
“The platform allows its users to see what’s happening in and around their community space. ‘A digital coffee corner’,” added Marschall. “Coworkers can now share their skills and experience with people sitting next to them. But that’s not all – events, announcements, job posts, and a chat box are all integrated. In the long term, Knowork wants to include other features such as room booking, email notifications, member billing and an interactive news feed.”
“Knowork will continue to add features to stay the one-stop-shop for communities looking to boost engagement amongst their members,” said Saskia Verstege, director at ASIF Ventures. “Knowork’s multifunctionality combined with the vision and leadership of such a strong founder made for a perfect investment opportunity. Besides, the coworking market is on the rise, with annual growth rates as high as 25%.”
“With lack of engagement often mentioned as one of the biggest downsides of working in a co-working space, Knowork addresses a real and pressing problem,” continued Verstege. “There is great growth potential – everyone is longing for purposeful engagement, whether it is in a co-working space or elsewhere. Our investment will enable Knowork to further develop a platform with data rich user profiles with skills, interests, experience and more, so the next time you need to find a graphic designer that has worked on a blockchain projects to talk about your new website – it’s just a few clicks away.”
