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I’m often asked by startups that are growing where they can find office space that isn’t too expensive.
So, I’ve compiled a comprehensive list of co-working spaces in the Greater Toronto Area. While doing that, I was pleasantly surprised about the variety of choices that exist. There were 37 facilities, with a total capacity of 4,253 people, and spread over 432,350 square feet of office space. That’s a pretty impressive inventory, and it surpasses what’s available in New York City (about 21 centers).
Co-working spaces are part of the fabric of a startup ecosystem. With an increasing number of startups in the system, this means they need to find office space somewhere. The flurry of growth and a variety of flavors in co-working spaces in Toronto is a good healthy sign.
The spaces could be categorized according to the following segments:
- Acceleration-focused, e.g. MaRS, HIGHLINE Academy.
- Government-sponsored regional spaces, e.g. RIC Centre, ventureLab.
- Large spaces, e.g. the CSI family.
- University-based, e.g. DMZ, OCAD.
- Cool new spaces, e.g. Workhaus, BrightLane, OneEleven.
- Existing startups that rent excess capacity, e.g. Uken Games.
- Collective groups, e.g. the ones under the Coworking Toronto.
- Traditional office spaces that converted parts, i.e. iQ Dineen, Workplace One.
To make this collection browsable, I’ve used Silk, a data publishing platform that lets you easily explore and visualize data sets (I’m a fan of Silk, and plan on publishing an update to my Global Unicorns list in a few days, on that same platform).
To drill into the details for each entry, you really need to click on Explore, and you’ll be able to perform some interesting manipulations and filtering on the data. You may even Share (or embed) this set anywhere you’d like.
Note that I didn’t include other tech startup related centers that don’t seem to have working spaces, but that still offer acceleration and mentoring services, e.g. the Creative Destruction Lab, Kinetic Cafe and the York Entrepreneurship Development Institute.
If you’re a startup and looking for new or expansion space, use the Contact Email that’s part of this collection to get in touch with these spaces. I know that many of them have unused capacity.
If there are errors or omissions in this data set, please email me wmougayar@gmail.com or leave a comment.