London’s flexible workspace market has no shortage of glossy lounges and craft coffee bars. So when a new operator arrives promising something different, it’s worth a second look. This week, Italian coworking brand Cofoundry opened the doors to its first location outside Italy: a coworking space on Tottenham Court Road in central London, complete with private offices, open coworking areas and meeting rooms.
It’s a small opening in square-metre terms, but a meaningful one strategically. Cofoundry isn’t trying to out-scale WeWork, IWG or Spaces. It’s making a bet that identity, not size, is what will carve out space in one of Europe’s most saturated flex markets.
Selling nostalgia as a business model
Founder and chief executive Erica Turchetti has been explicit about what she wants the London site to feel like. She described the goal as building a workplace with a “strong, recognizable and authentic Italian identity,” somewhere that blends professionalism and community with a distinctly Italian way of welcoming people, and that can act as a natural gathering point for Italians living and working in the city.
That’s a notable departure from how most coworking brands position a first international location. The instinct for most operators expanding abroad is to localise: soften the brand, adapt to local tastes, blend in with the market they’re entering. Cofoundry is doing the opposite, leaning into its Italian-ness as the product itself, not just the backstory.
Whether that resonates beyond a niche of homesick professionals and Italophile Londoners is the real test. London already has diaspora-flavoured business communities and networking circles; a coworking space that doubles as a cultural touchpoint could tap into that demand in a way a generic serviced office never could.
A palazzo, a foundry, and now Tottenham court road
Cofoundry’s UK debut follows seven years of building a network across Italy: three locations in Milan, three in Rome and one in Genoa, plus a new London site. One recurring theme across that Italian footprint is a preference for buildings with history rather than anonymous glass towers. The Genoa location occupies three floors of the 16th-century Palazzo Lauro overlooking the city’s port. In Milan, the portfolio includes a converted postal-franking factory and a former bronze foundry, and the Martesana site pairs its workspace with coliving.
That pattern matters for how the London opening should be read. This isn’t an operator chasing the cheapest available shell to plant a flag in the UK; it’s one whose brand has been built, quite literally, on repurposing spaces with a story. Whether the Tottenham Court Road site follows the same character-building instinct or is a more conventional fit-out wasn’t detailed in the announcement, but it’s consistent with what Cofoundry has done everywhere else.
Why this isn’t just another coworking expansion story
Cofoundry’s arrival adds to a broader pattern this month of European coworking operators pushing into new cities, from Croatian brand Desk&Co’s move into Split to InfinitSpace’s Munich debut. What sets this one apart is the positioning: most cross-border coworking expansion stories are about square metres, occupancy targets, or landlord partnerships. Cofoundry’s London launch is framed almost entirely around cultural identity and community, a reminder that as the flex market matures and consolidates around a handful of global giants, smaller operators are increasingly looking for a wedge that isn’t just “cheaper” or “closer to a tube station.”
For London’s already crowded flex landscape, that’s a useful case study. Differentiation through brand and culture is a harder thing to copy than square footage or amenities, but it’s also a harder thing to scale. Whether Cofoundry can turn one Tottenham Court Road location into a genuine UK network, or whether this remains a single symbolic outpost, will say a lot about how much room is really left in London for boutique, identity-driven operators.
One address, one big bet
Cofoundry’s London opening is a small data point with a bigger question attached: in a flex market increasingly dominated by scale players, can a distinct cultural identity be a durable competitive advantage, or is it a nice story that works for one flagship location and struggles to replicate?
