News items
Here are some bits of Tampa Bay news that you may find interesting...
Embarc Collective opens its doors in the new year
“We're excited to announce that before the holidays, construction on our 32,000 square foot facility will be done and startups will move into the space just after the New Year,” says their announcement, and that’s great news. This means Embarc Collective, whose goal is to help Tampa Bay startups grow into successful, thriving companies and turn Tampa Bay into one of the go-to places for startups, will finally have a space they can call their own, as will the 40 startups under their wing.
You don’t have to be from one of their startups to benefit from their new space, either. It’s also going to be an event space, and as they say, “We hope to be the home to 100+ tech- and entrepreneurship-focused events in 2020, led by different organizations in the community.” I may have to see about hosting Tampa iOS Meetup — or the meetup I’m thinking of morphing it into — there sometime!
Find out more: Embarc Collective is Opening. What does this mean for Tampa Bay?
Drift opens a Tampa office
“As we grow to support our customers’ diverse needs, we recognized that we needed to expand our footprint and seek out a location with a budding tech scene and a diverse talent pool,” says David Cancel, founder and CEO of Drift, the Boston-based company that makes a “conversational marketing” platform that simplifies business-to-business buying.
“It needed to be an up-and-coming location that hadn’t been penetrated by the Googles and Accentures of the world," Cancel said. "To not have the competition. We want to be on the upswing and Tampa is booming.”
It also helped that Drift co-founder and CTO Elias Torres is a local who went to both high school and university (USF) here, and that he has a connection with Tampa Bay Lightning owner and Tampa booster Jeff Vinik, who flew Cancel to Tampa, showed him the Water Street project, and introduced him to Mayor Jane Castor as well as other local business leaders.
The end result: Drift is opening its fourth office in Tampa at 401 East Jackson, with plans to hire up to 100 employees by 2021. As of this writing, there are four Tampa-based jobs listed on their “careers” page: Business Development Representative, Customer Advocate - Entry Level, Customer Education Manager, and one that sound particularly intriguing: AI Conversation Designer.
Find out more:
Kin is coming to Tampa Bay
Here’s an interesting article from Suncoast Developers Guild featuring a Q&A with Jason Fraley, managing director of engineering for Kin, the online insurance company. While their headquarters are in Chicago, they’re expanding and opening an office in Tampa Bay, and among the locals he’s been hiring are Suncoast Developers Guild graduates.
Find out more: Managing Director of Engineering on Why He Hires SDG Grads
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