Female-focused coworking company The Riveter will open a space in Edina next month, its eighth location in the U.S. and its first in the Midwest.
"For 100 years, women have gone to work in a space for men," Founder Amy Nelson told Minne Inno. "And today, women are still a massively underserved market. We're thinking of women first, which is the opposite of how corporate America is built."
Between 2017 and 2018, women started an average of 1,821 new businesses a day, according to the 2018 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report. Nelson hopes Riveter will become a home for these entrepreneurs.
Although Riveter was founded by women with other women in mind, the space welcomes all genders - including men. Around 30 percent of members don't identify as female, Nelson said.
Riveter opened its first office, located in Seattle, about two years ago. Since then, it has debuted two more spaces in the city and expanded to Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.
Nelson, an attorney by trade, said that she was inspired to create a special workspace for women after having her first child.
"When I became a mom, I started looking at the workforce differently, because the workforce began looking at me differently," she explained. "I went to a bunch of coworking spaces and they all felt so masculine. And I thought that women should have the power to define what they want in a workspace."
Female-focused and women-only coworking spaces have increased in popularity over the past several years. The Wing, a women-only space that got its start in New York, has raised more than $42 million in venture capital since its launch in 2016. It currently has seven locations and five more in the works.
The Twin Cities currently has two women-only coworking spaces: ModernWell and The Coven. Both opened in early 2018.
In December, Riveter raised a $20.5 million round of funding. The company currently has plans to open spaces in Portland, Denver, Atlanta and Dallas. Nelson previously told Fast Company that Riveter hopes to have 100 locations by 2022.
Riveter is breaking from the traditional coworking format with some of its offerings. In addition to providing members with a physical workspace, Riveter provides plenty of perks and programming that helps local entrepreneurs. This includes special speaking events, which in the past have featured U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
For around $100 each month, companies and individuals can get monthly memberships for events plus 10 hours of office time, giving members part-time work options unlike a lot of other coworking comapnies.
Through its partnerships, Riveter is also able to offer its members discounts on things like offsite child care and flight benefits.
Nelson lived in the Twin Cities for a couple of years before returning to Seattle. She said that her experience with the Minnesota business community motivated her to bring Riveter to the Twin Cities.
"There's something really, really powerful about the companies starting in this part of the country," Nelson said. "We see exciting changes afoot in Minnesota."
Riveter's Edina space will begin offering programming on June 10 and host a grand opening event on June 20.
