Draper opens Hero City: Chamber honors university founder, along with other business leaders

Hero City, or the Collective Entrepreneurs Club as it was first called, officially opened last night with a street closure, live bands, free food, superheroes wandering about and Tim Draper, the venture capitalist known as the Riskmaster.

Hero City will give entrepreneurs access to exclusive events, speakers, professional expertise and an incubator, plus fresh superhero talent from Draper University, which has only been open a little more than a year but has had its students’ ideas already get plenty of venture capital support.

Hero City will allow members to test, launch and sell their ideas to the world using its secret prototyping lab, pop-up retail space, media studio and amphitheater.

Draper was also one of the first to be honored by the San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce last night for his contributions to the city. The chamber’s Economic Development Growth Enterprise, or EDGE, presented Draper, YouTube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, AdMob’s Omar Hamoui and Comcast’s Marc Colombo with plaques that resembled superhero shields.

Draper, too, wore a superhero costume underneath his suit before accepting the award and before three others in superhero costumes rappelled down the old Benjamin Franklin Hotel, the home of Draper University.

Hero City will be a flexible co-working space that offers collaborative peer-to-peer workspaces for entrepreneurs on daily, weekly, monthly and annual membership terms.

Hero City will also feature retail pop-up stores that can be rented on a short-term basis and a large multi-purpose event space that can be rented out on evenings and weekends for events such as art shows, jazz concerts, corporate events and meetings when not in use by staff or students.

silverfarb@smdailyjournal.com

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