Our Story

The founding principles of Colony lie in the power of community and collaboration. From starting out in 2017 with a small band of freelancers in our Jactin House venue, to now operating six venues across the city, we have always strived to create supportive environments where connections can grow and ideas spark.

At the core of each of our venues is a coworking community, the people who come together to work alongside other professionals discover new opportunities, learn from one another and nurture their business.

Colony are proud to have built a ready-made, inclusive business network where everyone can thrive. By facilitating productivity and inspiring creativity, we help people achieve their objectives and growth both personally and professionally.

We do this by embracing a collaborative approach to coworking. Teamwork is the key component in our success and our values; our goals and objectives all stem from this. Colony is a community, where every voice matters and everyone is welcome.

Our Background...

Founded in 2017 by Aaron Ezair and Alex Campbell, Colony was born from the idea that creatives and freelancers need an optimised environment to come together to work that wasn’t your standard conventional office or a coffee shop.

Our aim was to create a safe, functional and inspiring workspace for such people to create, collaborate and express ideas with like-minded people freely.

The Colony logo also depicts a petri dish, alternatively known as a ‘culture dish’ to represent the growth of communities and companies within.

The magic began in our original venue Jactin House, once a home for the mill workers who fuelled Manchester’s Industrial Revolution. We were excited to make it a home for a new generation; the ‘Thinkers, Doers & Creators’ of Manchester’s modern workforce. We have naturally evolved from supporting a fledgling coworking community to now providing space for much bigger business in need of larger workspace, finding new ways to connect an even broader range of companies to the benefit of our network.

Now in our 6th year of operating, we are proud to offer 6 venues across the city for our members to connect within and own their progress from.

Our Ethos...

Colony believes in equal opportunities for all and recognizes the importance of addressing societal inequalities between all people across gender, sexuality, identity, and race. We have a zero tolerance policy to discrimination of any kind and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer.

Our team works closely with our charity partner, Mustard Tree, to help tackle homelessness and poverty in Manchester. Mustard Tree does amazing work, from outreach and support to training and resources. As part of our partnership, we run regular fundraising events with them, from Pub Quizzes for our coworking community to 10k races with our team. We love to see that our members get involved with these efforts too!

We want our community to be a reflection of the diverse world we live in. That’s why Colony strives to create an environment in which everyone is embraced and championed. We do this through our member spotlights, community events, and newsletters. Our team is always looking for new ways to engage and platform the full spectrum of people using our workspaces.

Sustainability...

Being a workspace operator comes with a responsibility towards not only the local environment but the wider world too. We all have to play a part in ensuring we build and operate our venues in a sustainable manner.

Since launching in 2017 we have come a long way with our environmental policies and thinking around sustainability. We continually explore ways to make our buildings more energy efficient are doubling down our efforts to improve sustainability across the business.

This year we have started some exciting new initiatives:

• In the summer of 2023 we installed solar panels on the Jactin House rooftop. These will produce 21,367 Kwh of clean energy annually, saving approximately 18.2 tonnes of Co2 emissions.
• Our latest venue, Fabrica, uses solar power to heat its water tanks.
• We have started recycling our coffee grounds by giving them to local community gardens to use as fertiliser. Saving them from decomposing in a landfill where they have been shown to release substantial methane emissions.

In our community there are environmental groups looking to collaborate with members to create more sustainable business practices. We always try to work within the Colony Community when trialling new sustainability practices.