Nestled in the Cape Town city centre on one of the city’s most popular streets is Work & Co, the newest co-working space startups and entrepreneurs have the chance call home.

Recently launched in the trendy, 15-storey Touchstone House building at number 7 Bree Street, Work & Co is the brainchild of French national and entrepreneur, Julien Verspieren, who moved to Cape Town in 2014 to explore a different way of life outside of Europe.

Verspieren and his family had grown familiar with Cape Town after a few visits over some years, and found that the Mother City was the perfect location to set up shop and a life, especially seeing as it’s now known as “Silicon Cape” thanks to all of the tech startups based there.

“I always used to do my work at coffee shops around Cape Town and found it interesting to see how many other people did the same,” he told htxt.africa.

“I found that working in such an environment wasn’t very conducive. I wanted to a find a comfortable space where I could be surrounded by professionals and wouldn’t be bound by long property leases,” he adds.

This inspired Verspieren to come up with the idea for Work & Co, which he funded entirely out of his own pocket.

“Our main aim is to build a community with the same values and vision to grow business. We are giving people the tools to do that,” he said. “We are not just a hub, we’re also going to be hosting formal and informal events for people to get together. We want businesses to really co-work.”

Cape Town-based international designer Andrea Graff is the brains behind Work & Co’s interior design which features her signature blend of vibrant patterns and colour with a combination of classic and modern pieces and natural materials.

Large common areas in the space give members panoramic views of the city, mountains and harbour in an effort to stimulate creativity and create an inspiring environment.

Work & Co offers three different facilities: hot desking that starts from R350 a day, shared office space starting from R3 990 a month, private offices and meeting room space from R350 an hour.

Each facility comes with basic benefits such as WiFi, secure parking, access to a kitchen, lockers, cleaning services, printers, scanners, copiers and all day and night access.

Work & Co members get an individual login to an exclusive portal that connects them with the space’s community of people and companies you can link up with, find out who they are, what they do and what services they’re looking for.

“With this portal, we’re trying to provide an additional digital network for members to help build our community. We’re not just about providing shared space and facilities, living up to our motto of ‘Inspire, connect and achieve'” Verspieren says.

Joining Work & Co is very simple and can be done through its website; for more information, you can email  info@workandco.co.za of just pop into the Touchstone House.