Shana Schlossberg broke into Hartford in 2016 with aspirations to build a new coworking, networking and incubator hub downtown to spur entrepreneurship.
With financial support from Connecticut Innovations, the state’s quasi-public venture arm, her company — Upward, located in downtown’s Stilts Building at 20 Church St. — has connected a number of national and global startups to investors and various corporate partners.
Numerous early stage companies that have participated in Upward’s incubator have relocated to Hartford and/or are hiring staff here.
Upward signed a 20-year lease for its 34,000-square-foot Stilts Building space with prominent Hartford landlord Shelbourne Global LLC, for which Schlossberg’s brother, Benjamin, is a managing member.
Benjamin Schlossberg and his realty firm have also become power players, after buying up hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate downtown — including major class A office towers — over the past six years or so, becoming the center city’s most dominant landlord. Shelbourne Global is also leading a $100-million redevelopment of Pratt Street.
Shana Schlossberg’s latest venture, “Upward Living,” includes the creation of 32 units of “co-living” apartments downtown intended to provide short-term housing for participants in Upward’s accelerator program.