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A month after the close of Betahouse’s startup loft in Central Square, another off-beat startup incubator is launching in Cambridge. Like Betahouse, the new Vogel Labs aims to be a coworking environment for a curated group of makers, founders and thinkers. And, like Betahouse in its early days, we can’t tell you exactly where Vogel Labs is.
Founder Kevin Vogelsang said he can cover the costs of his 700-square-foot loft space, somewhere between Kendall and Central Squares, by charging members $100 a month. In a blog post announcing his namesake project, Vogelsang said he’s got the standard equipment – whiteboards, desks, “blazing fast Internet” – and he’s working on making deals for nearby facilities for fabrication, auto repair and a “music lab.”
What’s more important than the physical location is the eclectic mix of makers, entrepreneurs, artists and geeks he plans to assemble, Vogelsang said. And he still won’t say where it is. “Everybody wants to have a secret lab,” he quipped.
His lengthy post outlining Vogel Labs’ mission sports images of Batman, Superman, Jim Henson, Walt Disney, Muhammad Ali and a comic-book-superhero-style logo in the shape of a birdlike ‘V.’
Vogel Labs began in the spring, when Vogelsang moved in as caretaker at a vacant MIT fraternity house and invited a handful of startups and entrepreneurs to share the space with him. During undergraduate study at MIT, Vogelsang was a brother at Alpha Tau Omega. In 2009, MIT stripped the fraternity of its university recognition after finding it had violated the school’s alcohol policy.
Sensobi and Langolab, TechStars companies in 2009, were among the startups who worked with Vogelsang there, he said. He hasn’t identified any members for the new Vogel Labs, he said, but predicted that when he does, they won’t be conventional startups.
“It might not be businesses at all. It might just be someone that wants to do a project,” Vogelsang said. “A lot of businesses come out of wanting to do cool stuff. When the right culture happens, the right mix of people, a lot of things happen spontaneously.”
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