Six twentysomethings in East London have constructed what they are saying is the anti-San Francisco hacker home. The purpose is a “holistic enchancment in life,” fairly than “12 weeks, Demo Day is coming,” Rowan Aldean, 26, defined.
Intrigued, I spent a day visiting the home, assembly its residents, and doing a vibe examine. I arrived after Aldean escorted me by way of the clear sidewalks of a brand new East London improvement to the place the six-story constructing stood going through the water.
The home is named the London Island Founder Home — or “Raise Home” — and Aldean and his spouse, Zahraa, 22, an upcoming pharmaceutical analysis PhD candidate, have lived there since Could, just some months after it formally launched in March. Aldean bought his earlier firm final yr for hundreds of thousands, he mentioned, and now runs an “utilized AI” startup that helps firms learn to deploy brokers.
Like all hacker homes, Raise Home is a component startup workspace, half co-living area. The home is called after each its raise — that’s, its elevator — and its mission to uplift tech founders, Aldean mentioned. It’s one of many only a few co-living hacker homes to exist in London (in comparison with San Francisco, the place dozens — if not a whole lot — are scattered across the metropolis at any given time).
Raise Home is a guess that U.Okay. founders can construct profitable firms with out mimicking the over-the-top hustle tradition of Silicon Valley.
Founders have described tales of San Francisco hacker homes illegally operating in warehouses, throwing full-on galas, or organising in a tent or espousing punishing, 72-hour sprints typical of the “996” work tradition.
“I don’t anticipate the performative and over-the-top occasions will likely be a factor right here,” Aldean mentioned, and pointed to one in all London’s most profitable AI firms, DeepMind. “They’ve received Nobel prizes and constructed frontier innovation with none track and dance.”
As a substitute, Raise Home is a part of a pattern known as “Londonmaxxing,” through which founders try and optimize all the things the London tech scene affords. The London ecosystem feels much less showy and fewer startup bro-y than San Francisco, however its founders share comparable ambitions: success, wealth, and market domination.
London AI startups have raised $12 billion to this point in 2026, out of $14.7 billion raised by all London startups, in line with Dealroom. Six firms have raised greater than $500 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the latter three of which have been based by DeepMind alumni.
The joy from AI has boosted the morale of the U.Okay. tech scene, inspiring a brand new era of founders, like these within the Raise Home, to take large swings.
Journaling vs. demo day
The timeline for dwelling on Raise Home is versatile — some folks have stayed for a month; others intend to remain for no less than six months. They purchase their very own groceries, Aldean mentioned, though they typically cook dinner collectively and share elements. Cleansing is break up among the many group. Everybody declined to share details about the lease they pay.
The residents of Raise Home goal for a balanced method towards ambition, every one in all them tells me — an nearly unheard-of thought by San Francisco startup requirements.
On Sundays, the group will journal collectively, a follow launched by David Amor, 28, who runs a mind teaching and coaching firm, serving to founders and enterprise leaders perceive extra about their mind and the way it can assist optimize enterprise efficiency. The concept of journaling is to assist everybody observe how a lot time they spent in nature that week, how properly they ate, and the way a lot they moved their our bodies.
“I’m consuming more healthy, figuring out extra, and sleeping extra,” Luke, 27, who runs an AI-marketing firm, mentioned about dwelling in the home. “I at all times be certain to have lunch now, which is one thing that’s easy, however I wasn’t doing earlier than I lived right here.” (Luke requested that his final identify be withheld.)
Tuesdays evenings are for volleyball, the place the founders play on the home group in a neighborhood league.
After dinner on different evenings, Wan Ying L, 25, who simply left an AI startup and is engaged on a brand new thought, may play the piano in the lounge. Typically the group performs Catan or visits artwork exhibitions collectively.
Presence Plumb, 25, is a tech strategist. She likes to host rooftop dinner events, serving dishes that mirror the totally different nationalities in the home — from Iraqi to Spanish — whereas invited founders, researchers, traders, and operators chat about tech tendencies and investments.
“It’s a bit calmer, balanced, genuine in a means,” she mentioned of individuals within the London ecosystem. “They don’t need an excessive amount of of that solely startup tech bro vibe. They need a little bit of stability.”
Every founder follows their very own schedules for a typical workday. Amor, for instance, is up by 8 a.m. and offers himself precisely 30 seconds after waking up earlier than leaping into his morning work. “I’ve a transparent goal of ‘that is what I need to do within the first half of the day, when there’s no distractions.’” After his morning work routine, he takes a chilly bathe, “as a result of it will increase your dopamine by 250% and that provides me that motivation, that spark,” he mentioned.
Luke, in the meantime, is up at round 8:30. His co-founder, Varun, 27 (who requested that his final identify be withheld), usually travels to the Raise Home to co-work, and the duo begins work at round 9 a.m. with a group name.
Aldean hardly ever wakes earlier than 10 a.m. until one thing large is occurring, like a “loopy angel [investor] name,” he mentioned.
When requested what makes this home uniquely British fairly than a wellness-focused Silicon Valley founder home, Aldean joked: “Effectively, we drink tea collectively like Brits, and in SF of us simply drink filtered espresso.”
Extra severely, he spoke of how British founders face a distinct sort of strain than these within the U.S. They have to navigate a cultural aversion to danger, an inclination towards humility, and a disgrace related to failure. As a substitute of forgoing sleep for hustle and grind, they cope with what they name the “tall poppy syndrome,” when the media builds one up solely to ruthlessly tear them down ought to they develop into too profitable, traders and founders say. It makes some founders within the ecosystem cautious of displaying too many wins.
Nonetheless, Luke mentioned London is a powerful selection for an early-stage founder: There’s a superb community, ample early capital alternatives, and an choice for a life exterior of tech. In some ways, it’s way more like New York culturally for founders than in San Francisco.
“London is so various that for those who look correctly sufficient, you’ll at all times discover one thing enjoyable to become involved with,” Amor added, “whether or not that’s a founder-run membership, wellness occasions, [or going] to jazz nights.”
Luke and Varun largely averted enterprise capital funding by profiting from the U.Okay. authorities’s SEIS/EIS, which is meant to assist appeal to extra angel investments into native startups. “There’s individuals who can pay principally the identical price of tax if they provide us the cash versus in the event that they pay earnings tax,” Luke defined as another excuse he preferred beginning out in London.
Aldean additionally feels the London ecosystem is much less cutthroat than the Valley. He recollects his days dwelling in a hacker home within the Bay — everybody’s desk needed to face the wall, and it was heads-down, product-building. He felt the ecosystem, at occasions, was too keen to gossip, which is seemingly performed fairly in another way within the U.Okay.
“There’s nothing like ‘oh my god did you hear that the CTO simply, like, did this,’” Aldean mentioned. “It’s such as you’re at all times fearful,” he mentioned, that somebody would unfold adverse tales, particularly if it benefited them.
Aldean additionally thinks London startups, greater than Silicon Valley ones, promote into slow-moving massive firms fairly than to one another, that means one may construct with out having to kiss up or posture to get their friends to love them.
To the promoting level, Varun and Luke talked about one other distinction between the U.S. and U.Okay. ecosystem. “It’s a comparatively fleeting market,” Varun mentioned of the U.S. “You get fast wins. Right here, it’s laborious to shut a buyer, but when they shut, they stick with you longer.”
Coming to America
Finally, although, the street for a lot of U.Okay. startups goes straight to the U.S.
Within the U.Okay., founders have entry to inexpensive prime expertise from universities like Oxbridge and a time zone that makes it simpler to work with the remainder of Europe, the Center East, Asia, and elements of North America. Within the U.S., nonetheless, they’ve entry to the world’s largest financial system and, most significantly, a number of traders keen to jot down massive checks, from pre-seed to progress levels.
“It’s nearly like a manufacturing unit line in a means,” Varun mentioned. “You begin right here, and then you definitely develop there or vice versa.”
American traders are additionally taking part in a task in luring British expertise away from the nation. I instructed the Raise Home residents about one startup founder who mentioned a prime investor wouldn’t even again the corporate until she relocated to the U.S. She ended up doing so, although determined to maintain her household primarily based within the U.Okay. to lift her kids.
“We had an investor in Miami who mentioned the identical factor,” Luke mentioned of an investor making an attempt to get him and Varun to maneuver to the U.S. “It’s fairly a standard follow.” He and Varun have already begun their U.S. growth, and regardless of loving London, the duo hasn’t dominated out shifting to the U.S. to be nearer to their clients.
That’s the strain effervescent beneath not simply the U.Okay.’s tech ecosystem however most of Europe’s. “I work with lots of people making an attempt to assist the European ecosystem extra,” Plumb mentioned.
But, founders “speak about London; everyone seems to be bullish on the nation till they get the chance to go away,” Aldean added.
The Raise Home lease has a few yr left, and there may be sentiment in the home to maintain it going for so long as they’ll. In any case, there aren’t too many in London, although the town sees many short-term gatherings, just like the Solana Hacker Home meet-up sequence. A number of the extra public co-living hacker homes are a part of a worldwide chain, just like the San Francisco-based community The Residency, which expanded into London final yr, and BaseJump, which is asserting a London model of its hacker home program quickly.
In 2024, two founders tried the alternative model of the Raise Home known as “The London Founder Home,” which Sifted coated below the headline “The folks right here don’t need work-life stability.” That house is famous as London’s first-ever hacker home, and although it wound down final yr, it left an affect by way of its idea, occasions, and linked gamers across the ecosystem. To even be thought of for the London Founder Home, one needed to have raised no less than half one million {dollars}.
For Raise Home, potential residents want to point out a passion exterior their firms and an curiosity in health. It’s the identical pitch many within the Londonmaxxing ecosystem are utilizing to maintain folks from leaving: That right here one can have all of it.
“The tradition is to construct one thing that lasts,” Aldean mentioned, “not essentially burn out chasing a flash.”
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