Orlando coworking spaces rally around new support organization

A cluster of coworking spaces in Central Florida, which provide services to new businesses, have joined to create an organization intended to unify several groups that had been on opposite sides of a city funding plan last year.

The Orlando Coworking Alliance forms during the same week the city approved a fund that will provide grants to support the groups’ mission of helping startups. The new group will include the downtown Orlando-based groups StarterStudio, Catalyst and Colab, a trio that have worked with startups for several years.

“There has been a lack of awareness of coworking in Orlando,” said Dennis Pape, founder of Catalyst, who said he started the group to fix that.

The group first met in August, with representatives attempting to organize, and followed similar efforts in cities such as San Diego, Kansas City and Seattle.

The Alliance provides information for people in the city looking to discover resources in town for young companies, Pape said.

“When I spoke before the city and told them of the multiple coworking locations in town, it came as news to a lot of folks,” he said. “There was this notion that Canvs was the only coworking space.”

Canvs had recently joined with the funding group Firespring Fund and the training program Starter Studio to form StarterStudio.

“We can learn from each other,” Pape said. “It’s a trade group that will be the voice of coworking here.”

ScribbleSpace in Windermere and Hub 925 in Orlando also joined, along with the video game-specific Orlando Game Space.

Each of the groups will have free days during “Orlando Coworking Week,” a weeklong event set for May 14-18 that will feature open houses and receptions. Details can be found at OrlandoCoworkingAlliance.com.

On Monday, the Orlando city council approved a new fund that will provide grants that can range from $1,000 to 10,000 to agencies that develop programs for the city’s tech sector.

It’s a far cry from late last year, when Catalyst founder Dennis Pape appeared before the city council to complain of favoritism toward a competitor.

At the time, the city had introduced a plan to grant the entirety of a $150,000 award to a group of organizations that have since unified under the StarterStudio name.