DARE Campus: Where Robots Get to Run Wild | Stefan Zimmer
Stefan Zimmer on building DARE Campus, a deep tech maker space near Zurich where robotics and hardware startups get the messy physical space that clean offices cannot provide.
Key insights: executive summary
- Hardware innovation needs space you are allowed to damage: test halls, dirt, noise and height, not co-working desks.
- Deep tech maker spaces shorten iteration cycles by putting machining, testing and assembly under one roof.
- Physical infrastructure is an underrated part of the Swiss tech ecosystem, and a real constraint on Zurich deep tech startups.
- Clustering hardware teams creates informal technical support that no accelerator programme can schedule.
- Access to space changes who can start a robotics company, widening the founder pool beyond the well-funded.
“You cannot iterate a robot in a room where you are not allowed to make a mess.”
“The cheapest accelerator for hardware is a neighbour who has already solved your problem two benches away.”
Why do hardware startups need maker spaces, not offices?
Robotics teams need to drop things, run machines loudly, and leave a half-assembled rig standing for three weeks. Standard commercial real estate around Zurich is priced and regulated for knowledge work, which quietly pushes hardware teams out of the city.
How does shared infrastructure accelerate deep tech scaling?
Shared test equipment turns a capital expense into a marginal one, so early teams reach a credible prototype before raising Swiss venture capital rather than after.
Who is Stefan Zimmer?
Stefan Zimmer is a Founder at DARE Campus, part of the Zurich deep tech ecosystem this series documents. Topics covered in this episode: Deep tech maker spaces, Hardware innovation, Zurich deep tech startups, Robotics infrastructure.
Visit DARE CampusEpisode show notes
Most offices are clean, quiet, and a little boring. Stefan Zimmer built the opposite. In this episode of TechDrive Zürich, I drive through Zürich with Stefan, employee number one at FlexOffice and the head of DARE Campus. FlexOffice started in 2018 with nothing but an idea and four laptops. Today it is the biggest serviced-office provider in Switzerland, with 11 locations and around 30,000 square meters of space. DARE Campus is Stefan's boldest bet yet: a home built on purpose for deep-tech and robotics startups, with raw concrete, no fancy double floors, and big rooms where teams can get a little wild with heavy hardware. We also get into how an office company survived a COVID home-office mandate, the day a humanoid robot ran through the campus, the one piece of office tech everyone secretly hates, and why the "far away" neighbourhood of Schlieren is actually nine minutes away by train.
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