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This week in Europe: Startup campus – trend or fad?

September 13th | #42

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” - A Moveable Feast, 1964

That quote comes from A Moveable Feast, one of Ernest Hemingway’s most acclaimed books. In it, Hemingway goes on and on about the importance of Gertrude Stein.

In 1902 she went with her brother Leo — with whom she later fell out — to Paris where she settled into a first-floor apartment in the Rue de Fleurus, just off the Luxembourg Gardens.

The Rue de Fleurus apartment soon became a literary salon and art gallery, a gathering of American expats and various artists, and a center of the emerging avant-garde.

The gatherings in the Stein home "brought together confluences of talent and thinking that would help define modernism in literature and art."

Last week, Finnish startup campus Maria 01 announced that it has begun the expansion of its Helsinki campus to become Europe’s largest startup campus.

The campus will expand from its current 10,000 sq meter space to 70,000 sq meter by 2023 and expects to attract approximately 650 new operators and new jobs for at least 4,000 people.

It'll look like this.

Impressive, right?

Coupled with all the buzz around Station F, startup campuses are all the rage nowadays. In a way, they're the modern version of the 27 Rue de Fleur apartment, but on steroids.

Today we are going to go over why they work, and why they don’t, and whether your city should build one.

A startup campus around the corner

We already covered Maria 01, but that's only one in a long list of startup campus in Europe.

• Station F. Everyone knows Station F. After all, they advertise themselves as the largest startup facility in the world (and they are). With more than 30 startup programs, 35 public administrations, 40 VC funds, 4 mentorship offices and 600 events per year, STATION F quickly became the center of gravity for the French tech scene.

• Factory Berlin. Inspired by Andy Warhol’s famed Factory in New York, Factory Berlin brings together the brightest minds from tech, politics, arts, and science into one place.

• Silicon Allee. From the company that operates Factory Berlin, Silicon