/tech-coops

A list of tech coops and resources concerning tech coops and worker owned cooperatives in general.

Tech coops list

A list of tech coops and resources concerning tech coops and worker owned cooperatives in general.

Contributions to this list are very welcome. Just clone this repo, edit this file (README.md) or edit it directly (open it and click on the pencil icon on the upper right) and create a pull request.

What are worker-owned tech cooperatives?

A very general definition:

Worker-owned cooperatives are business enterprises that are owned and governed by their employees. All worker cooperatives have two common characteristics: 1) member-owners invest in and own the business together, and share the enterprise’s profits, and 2) decision-making is democratic, with each member having one vote.

community-wealth.org

Tech cooperatives are worker-owned cooperatives that operate in the information technology industry. This list focuses on tech coops that are providing software development and consulting services.

Tech cooperatives could be a solution if you feel alienated by big software corporations and startup culture or you feel alone and in search of solidarity as a freelancer.

Table of Contents

  1. Coops
  2. Networks of coops
  3. Resources
  4. Information on tech coops and coops in general
  5. Talks
  6. Mailinglists
  7. Tools
  8. Products created by tech coops
  9. Jobs and contracts
Coop Business Areas Region/Country Notes
Agaric Web development, tech consulting USA / Nicaragua / Germany Worker-owned collective building online since 2006, lately contributing to the Drutopia platform for grassroots groups.
Agile Collective Web development UK
Albatros Tech Cooperative Initiative Design, Development Istanbul, Turkey Worker-Owners
Alma Software development Saint-Martin-d’Hères, France Founded 1979
Atomised Web development, mobile apps, UX design Cupar, Scotland Founded 2008
bits.coop webgl, maps, p2p, offline data replication
Black Shuck Producing moving image, audio and digital projects (websites, apps and installations). Europe
Brierwood Coop Mobile apps Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
A Bunch of Hacks Video game development, software development Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Camplight web and mobile development, tech consulting EU, Bulgaria A digital cooperative that creates experiences for the web, mobile and beyond
Caravan Web Worker Cooperative Web design, Software development (Python) Montreal and Quebec City, Canada
C4 Tech & Design Web Design, Business IT Services, Computer Repair New Orleans, USA
CoLab Ithaca, NY, USA "CoLab’s mission is to contribute to a new economy of justice and cooperation while bringing clients beautiful, cutting-edge technology."
Coopdevs Development Barcelona, Catalonia Non profit association and workers cooperative focusing on non-profit & grassroots social change projects e.g. Open Food Network amongst others
Co-operative Web Web Development, Mobile Development, Web Hosting, legacy software support Birmingham, UK
Devtopia Consulting, project management, design and UX, web development, app development, marketing Spain Distributed company
Diciannove Consulting, project management, open source development, hosting, web design Italy
Digicoop Product company, makers of kantree.io France Distributed company
dtc innovation Web development, design and engineering, cooperation, open {data|source} France, UK, Québec
EITA Open Source Development Brazil Our goal is to deliver open source technologies to social moviments
Electric Embers Hosting San Francisco, CA, USA
Enspiral NZ Network-type
Equality Web development (Django/Angular) Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
Eryx Full-stack development, Data Science, Operations Research, UX, Consulting CABA, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Feel Train Portland, OR, USA "Feel Train will never consist of more than 8 people."
Fiqus Web and mobile development Buenos Aires, Argentina
gcoop Hosting, Consulting, Web Development, FLOSS Development Buenos Aires, Argentina "Transformamos los sistemas."
GNU Coop Open source development, training, e-learning, project management Italy
Go free Range Web development UK
Happy Dev Anything digital France Freelancers network federating tech collectives around France
Hypernova Web Development, Web Design, Digital Italy Freelancers network, part of the Doc Servizi coop network
Hypha Worker Co-operative Digital coaching, (decentralized) web design, and development Tkaronto (Toronto), Ontario, Canada Founded in 2019 with the mission to help organizations and communities redesign their relationships with digital technology.
Igalia Free Software consultancy A Coruña, Spain; Global 40+ workers
IT Kollektiv Cross-platform apps, web development, backend development, consulting GER Network-type
IT Kollektivet Copenhagen, Denmark
Jamgo Front-end dev, design services, e-commerce, Drupal/WordPress Barcelona, Spain
Kedu Software, infrastructure Barcelona, Spain
Koumbit Hosting, Websites, Sysadmin Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Loomio Online decision-making app Wellington, New Zealand Wikipedia
Les-Tilleuls.coop Web development, Tech consulting, Open Source Development Lille, Paris, Nantes, Lyon (France) Tech worker-owned cooperative founded in 2011. Creators of the API Platform framework and major contributors to Symfony.
MuchDifferent Game technology, Engineering Uppsala, Sweden
Nayra Web development, UX Buenos Aires, Argentina
Nilenso Development (Clojure, Javascript, Ruby, Haskell, Go, Java) Bangalore, India
Outlandish Web development London, UK Sponsored 2016 Outlandish Fellowships
Palante Technology Cooperative Web development, CiviCRM, Tech support, Training Focus on NGOs
Plausible Labs Development, Design New York and San Francisco, USA Bylaws
Position Development Software Development Brooklyn, NY Focused on independent media, cultural institutions, and socially minded organizations
Protozoa Web development NZ
Quilted consulting, graphic design, web development Berkeley, California, USA "Quilted is a worker-owned, cooperatively-managed company stitching together technology and social change."
Rabotnik graphic design, web-development, video production and animation, campaign and concept development Denmark
RadicalDesign Web development Oakland, CA, USA Focusing on non-profit and grassroots social change organizations
Resonate Music Streaming Berlin, Germany / Dublin, Ireland A multistakeholder platform co-operative - with contributors (workers, contractors, volunteers) represented with a 20% ownership stake.
Root Systems Consulting NZ "Pod" within Enspiral; Inactive.
Sassafras Tech Collective Research, User experience design, Development Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Seattle Developers Cooperative Web development, React, Node.js Seattle, Washington, USA Founded 2018; Working on P2P projects in JavaScript
Sofi Cooperative Web development, Design, Vue, Node.js Jerusalem, Israel Founded 2018; "Sofi is a workers cooperative of designers and developers, we focus on websites and applications that bring positive value for society and the planet"
TableFlip Web development. Javascript, Node.js, Meteor. London, UK Founded 2013; "We're your technical co-founder."
TechCollective tech support San Francisco & Boston, USA
the Tech Support Cooperative POS software, open-source web development, consulting US + CAN Maintainers of the CORE-POS / IS4C software project
Tecso Development, Information services Rosario, Argentina Founded 2002; 150+ associates
Vulk Coop Design, Development Austin, TX, USA Worker-owned, Founded 2013, Organizers of Austin Software Co-operatives Meetup
Webarchitects Co-operative Hosting, Sysadmin Sheffield, UK Multi-stakeholder, including workers, organisations and investors

Other lists

Meetups

Handbooks / Guides

Books

Articles

Financing / Salaries

Legal

Conflict

Other links

  • Cobudget - Crowdsource and fund projects within an organization. Developed and used by Enspiral.
  • Loomio - Online decision-making
  • API Platform - REST and GraphQL framework on top of Symfony and React.
  • Cobuy - Group wholesale purchases as a consumer co-op (by Root Systems).
  • CoopHub - Git repos from cooperatives around the world!
  • Up & Go - Cooperative Home Cleaning Services (by CoLab).
  • Moodlight - Emotional intelligence for teams (by Camplight)
  • Assista - Effortless time tracking for Trello (by Camplight).

License

This work and all contributions to it are released into the public domain under the terms of the CC0 1.0.