AUSTIN, Texas — (CULTUREMAP AUSTIN) Following in the footsteps of Oracle and others, another tech company is heading from the West Coast to Austin.
CrowdStreet, which operates an online marketplace for investing in commercial real estate, announced March 19 that it’s shifting its headquarters from Portland, Oregon, to Austin. CrowdStreet is considering office space in downtown Austin and around North Austin’s Domain complex. CrowdStreet is targeting a June 1 opening date for the new office.
CrowdStreet executives decided to relocate the headquarters from Portland to Austin largely because Texas ranks second among states sending the most investors to the platform and because a majority of the properties sold through CrowdStreet are in Texas. Co-founder and CEO Tore Steen says the company settled on Austin because of its status as a tech hub.
Another factor in Austin’s favor: A CrowdStreet report put Austin at No. 2 among the best places for real estate investment in 2021. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, ranked first.
“This move best positions CrowdStreet for growth, puts us front and center with marketplace investors and real estate sponsors, and provides our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work,” Steen says in a release.
Steen will be the first person from CrowdStreet to move from Portland to Austin. Employees will be given the option to work remotely or to take a financial package covering their relocation to Austin. Steen says CrowdStreet will still operate an office in Portland.
CrowdStreet currently employs more than 100 people — mostly in Portland — and hopes to increase that number to about 180 by the end of this year, according to Steen.
Founded in 2013, CrowdStreet experienced its most successful year ever in 2020. CrowdStreet drew more than $640 million in investments last year across 90 commercial real estate deals. In the past seven years, the startup has arranged roughly $1.7 billion in investments through more than 470 projects.
To date, CrowdStreet has collected nearly $25 million in venture capital, according to Crunchbase.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: