The Next Bell Labs: Why the Future of Family Office Investing Looks a Lot Like a Members’ Club

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There is a reason Bell Labs produced more Nobel Prizes, more patents, and more world-changing innovation than almost any other institution in the 20th century. It was not the funding. It was not the mandate. It was the room.

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When you place physicists beside engineers, artists beside mathematicians, and give them a beautiful space to think and argue, something extraordinary happens. The walls between disciplines dissolve. Ideas collide. The future gets built.

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That principle is at the heart of what Fredrik Carlström, founder of Studio Carlström and creative force behind some of the world's most celebrated members' clubs and hospitality spaces, is building today. It is also the principle shaping how we think about community at MyFO.

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Community as Infrastructure 

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Over the past year, we have been building that space. Our private dinner series has brought together curated groups of family offices, global investors, and CEOs across Toronto, Vancouver, New York, the Hamptons, and Los Angeles. Each table is capped at 15-20 guests by design. The quality of a conversation changes when the room is the right size. 

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These are not pitch evenings. Our dinners are non-solicit by design. What fills the room instead are real conversations; investments, economics, and the forces shaping capital today. We also bring emerging managers to select dinners to share the technologies and innovations they are seeing move through the market. The kind of insight that does not make it into an industry or market report.

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We have never promoted these evenings publicly. Those who come find their way through referral, through trust, through someone who knows the value of the room. Each dinner now carries a waitlist, with clients and investors eager to secure a seat at the next one.

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The demand has made one thing clear: there is a deep appetite for this kind of gathering, and we are only getting started. 

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Aditi Kothari Desai, Chairperson at DSP Asset Managers:

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"Bringing family offices together in informal settings is incredibly valuable. These conversations go far beyond investing — covering governance, succession, HR challenges, and lessons learned from both successes and setbacks. Relationships are built organically in an environment free of judgement, where families navigating similar realities can speak candidly and learn from one another. Thank you to MyFO for making this possible."

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It is exactly that gap between exceptional people and the spaces worthy of them that Fredrik Carlström has spent three decades learning how to close.

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Building the Room 

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Fredrik Carlström is a creative director and entrepreneur who has spent three decades building physical spaces designed to bring exceptional people together. He is a founding partner of Stockholm Stadshotell, named one of Travel + Leisure's 100 Best New Hotels in the World, and in 2016 he launched Alma in Stockholm. Not a co-working space or a social club, but something closer to what Bell Labs once was: a physical environment engineered for cross-disciplinary collision, bringing together creatives, founders, scientists, and investors under one roof.

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Since 2020, Fredrik has been embedded in the world of deep tech as Creative Director of a leading quantum computing firm. That experience sharpened a conviction he carries into everything he builds: the companies that will define the next era of the global economy are science-led, and largely invisible to the capital that could help them grow. Not because the ambition is lacking on either side, but because the proximity has never existed. Fredrik has spent the last several years sitting at that intersection, and what he is building now is a direct response to what he found there.

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A New Kind of Club

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Now Fredrik is building a global network of physical spaces, beginning with Stockholm and New York, designed to bring together founders, scientists, investors, and family offices under one roof. The conviction behind it is straightforward: “the most important companies being built today, whether in quantum computing, new energy, or advanced materials, are largely invisible to the capital that could help them grow.” The disconnect is not about ambition or talent. It is proximity. Family offices, who think in decades rather than quarters, are often the most natural partners for them. What they have lacked is a shared room.

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Membership is not determined by net worth alone. It is curated through conversation, built on personality, perspective, and genuine engagement with difficult problems. Founding members in Stockholm have the opportunity to own a stake in the real estate itself, a commitment that goes well beyond a membership fee. New York is next, with an opening expected within the year.

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Why This Matters for Family Offices 

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Fredrik's answer is simple: build the right room. When people share a meal, test ideas openly, and disagree about the future, something real gets built. We have seen it at our own dinners. Introductions that became relationships. Conversations that became decisions. The room made the difference.

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The family offices shaping the next decade are not waiting for an opportunity to find them. They are already in the rooms where it is being created. At MyFO, we make sure our clients and network are too.

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MyFO and Fredrik Carlström are collaborating on something soon. Keep an eye out!

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Invitations to MyFO events are by referral only. If you believe you should be in the room, get in touch.

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‍To learn more about Fredrik Carlström and Studio Carlström, visit studiocarlstrom.com

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