Wilbe opens flexible life sciences lab hub in White City

Wilbe has opened its first dedicated laboratory hub in White City, London, adding physical space to a venture platform that already offers training and early funding for scientist founders.

The facility is inside The WestWorks building at White City Place and operates under Wilbe Labs, an infrastructure unit within the Wilbe Group. Wilbe frames the move as a response to a common problem for early-stage science startups: securing suitable lab space after leaving academia.

Founded in 2020 by Ale Maiano and Devika Thapar, Wilbe says it has trained more than 1,400 scientists and backed 22 companies, including Proxima Fusion, Infinitopes, and ExpressionEdits. It also reports generating more than USD $1.3 billion in value.

White city site

The hub is designed to accommodate 10 to 15 companies and up to 80 people, with fitted wet labs, offices, and meeting rooms. The wider White City Place campus offers more than half a million square feet of workspace across WestWorks, MediaWorks, and the Garden House.

Several life sciences and technology companies already operate on the campus, including Novartis and Autolus. Wilbe says additional lab units on site can support companies as they expand.

Stanhope developed White City Place and serves as asset manager. Under a management agreement with the landlord, Wilbe takes an operational role in the building, running day-to-day operations and handling sales and logistics.

Licence model

Companies will take space through flexible licence agreements rather than conventional commercial leases. Pricing is based on rooms and services, not floor area. Wilbe says the model reduces upfront costs and avoids long commitments, which can be difficult for early-stage science businesses facing uncertain timelines for experiments, hiring, and fundraising.

The hub is set up as ready-to-use lab space, allowing teams to start experiments immediately rather than waiting for fit-outs and procurement. The approach aligns with a broader push in the UK life sciences sector towards managed labs, as investors and founders look for faster routes from formation to early technical results.

White City has become a focus area for London's life sciences and deep tech activity in recent years. Imperial College London has a significant presence nearby, alongside NHS trusts and a growing concentration of biotech companies, engineering teams, and specialist service providers.

Maiano said access to lab space has become a persistent bottleneck for founders coming out of universities and research institutes.

"For years, we helped scientists raise capital and build companies, only to watch them hit the same wall: there was nowhere exciting to go once they left academia. Wilbe Labs exists to remove that friction and institutionalised mindset. It's not about real estate; it's about giving scientist founders the infrastructure they need, when they need it, so they can move with speed. If we want more world-class science companies to be built here, we have to make it easier for scientists to start building and to perform beyond what is expected," said Ale Maiano, Co-Founder and CEO, Wilbe.

Investor adjacency

Wilbe Labs operates as a standalone business within the Wilbe Group and is separate from Wilbe's investment activity. The split mirrors a common structure in the market, where lab operators serve a broad tenant base while venture teams manage investment decisions under separate governance.

Stanhope described the partnership as part of a shift towards more flexible lab provision in the UK.

"We are supporting Wilbe's evolution from venture capital into the built environment, a natural but exciting transition that Stanhope is well positioned to help facilitate. Wilbe's new proposition reflects the growing demand for flexible, high-quality lab environments across the UK's biotech sector. The UK's life sciences industry is moving at pace, and that momentum depends on having the right physical infrastructure in place. Operators like Wilbe bring deep operational insight into what early-stage ventures require day to day, and partnerships like this are essential if we are to create environments where innovation can genuinely thrive," said Claire Dawe, Head of Asset Management, Stanhope.

Expansion Plans

Wilbe plans to expand into additional hubs in the UK and internationally, including Zurich, Berlin, San Francisco, and Austin. It also expects a second London site focused on robotics.