Second Home closing in on new £20M funding round to bring its ‘creative workspace’ to more locations

Published November 28, 2018

Second Home, the “creative workspace” company co-founded by Rohan Silva, a former tech and startup policy advisor for then British Prime Minister David Cameron, is closing in on a new funding round, TechCrunch has learned.

According to sources, the London startup, which is also co-founded by Sam Aldenton, has secured £20 million in investment from Boston-based investor Gerald Chan, who owns Hang Lung Group with his brother Ronnie Chan. Both were the first investors in Xiaomi, and Gerald Chan recently gave the biggest-ever philanthropic gift to Harvard University, totaling a hefty $350 million.

I understand that the injection of capital will be used to expand to L.A. in the U.S., and possibly another five locations, as Second Home continues to scale up its operations and the number of physical locations it has under management. The funding could be announced as soon as next week.

Second Home’s existing investors include: Yuri Milner, Index Ventures, Atomico, Talis Capital, Tencent founder Martin Lau and former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill.

The company’s original East London site opened in November 2014. It then opened Second Home Lisbon in 2016, and added another London space in Holland Park this year. A third London Second Home in Clerkenwell Green will open its doors next month.

I’m told that all three are fully occupied, and Silva has previously said that 97 percent of new customers come via referrals and other “organic channels.”

Meanwhile, the companies, charities and teams based at Second Home across various sites include energy upstart Bulb (which employs 280 people located at Spitalfields), Threads Styling, Help Refugees, Kickstarter, TaskRabbit, Vice Media, Spotify, Volkswagen, Taylor Wessing, Ermenegildo Zegna and others.

Silva couldn’t be reached for comment at the time of publication. I’ll update this article if and when I hear back.