Austin. When you hear that word, you want to be here. You want Barton Springs, the music scene, the Texas Longhorns, the food scene, the local beers, breakfast tacos, and you want the high tech scene.
Here it is. Barton Springs, at 68F, is natural air conditioning on the hottest day in Austin.
Main Barton Spring (“Parthhena, the “mother spring”) — the 4th largest spring in Texas — and its sisters generate more than 32MM cubic feet per day of Edwards Aquifer water. Highest flow rate ever recorded was 85MM CFS during the infamous 1991 floods. In times of drought, the flow rate may be lower. All water from the Edwards is rain water.
While Barton Springs is cold and refreshing, while the Austin tech scene is hot and exciting. The following chart is the work of crunchbase news and its Austin author, Mary Ann Azevedo. She writes about Austin and lives in Austin.
Companies are relocating to Austin
This is an incredible, consistent record of attracting companies to Austin. Note that this does no include expansions of existing companies such as Samsung, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. That market is also as hot as a pistol.
As to headquarters relocations, the lack of a corporate or individual income tax is an appealing feature for corporate headquarters, but it is the quality of life, the ease of living, and the access to talent that is the real driver. Austin has now achieved “critical mass” wherein companies can now recruit locally and can get almost anybody to move to Austin from the Bay Area, Chicago, Boston, New York City.
Austin, why, Big Red Car?
Austin is even more attractive than Dallas and Houston, traditional rivals. First you learn to like Texas and, then, you fall in love with Austin.
The CEO of a company that moved from the Bay Area to Austin had this to say, “There’s talent already here or talent in other parts of the US excited about moving to the city [Austin By God Texas].” It’s the talent, baby.
Austin, no surprise here, has led the country in population growth for the last eight years.
So, who is moving to Austin, Big Red Car?
As a general proposition, it is startups that have the funding to be able to make the move.
Amongst them are such companies as Zoho which purchased 375 acres of land to build a corporate headquarters. Moved out of the East Bay. Imandra on the heels of $5MM in funding from LiveOak Venture Partners, Juul Labs, REX, Katerra, Procore, Adthena (from London after raiisng $14MM Series A, Directive, Eta Compute, Inc, Juniper Square ($25MM Series B), and Tech21 are all new to Austin.
Universally, the movers — who immediately become shakers when they move to the ATX — all tout the quality of life, the cost of living, the central location, the ease of recruitment, the music scene, SXSW, the “very young feel”, the innovation, the continued growth of the city, the deep talent pool, the hipness, and the breakfast tacos.
It’s the jobs, baby
This all translates to jobs. Last year the 46 relocations brought 9,424 new jobs — again, disregarding the expansion of existing companies that dwarfed that number with many more jobs.
Some time ago, it was a novelty to say, “Moving to Austin.” Now, it is mainstream.
If you are a company thinking of where you need to be, I have two words of advice: “Get some!”
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Come on down, y’all!
Shout out to Mary Ann Azevedo of crunchbase news. You got a BBQ coming at Green Mesquite on Barton Springs Road.
