Investors say these are the 11 hottest startups from Austin's booming tech scene to watch in 2020
- Austin, Texas, is becoming a tech hub in its own right, with massive tech companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google moving in with an army of well-off employees looking for better cost of living without compromising vibrant culture.
- The influx of talent also highlights the city's fast-growing startup scene growing along with its burgeoning venture capital industry.
- Perhaps best known for birthing PC and enterprise IT giant Dell, some of the city's fastest growing startups are making names for themselves in the athleisure, healthcare, and finance industries.
- See the 11 startups Austin's biggest investors are keeping an eye on in 2020.
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Ask any investor where the next big startup will come from, and odds are they won't say San Francisco.
The high costs of living, and the accompanying costs of labor, have pushed many investors to look elsewhere to stretch their venture dollars further. On top of that list is Austin, Texas - where Business Insider recently spent a week talking with investors and founders to get the pulse of its fast-growing tech scene.
The capital of the Lone Star State is commonly referred to as the "Silicon Hills," a reference to the hills just over the highway bordering the city to the north. With a top-ranked university, desirable downtown housing, and thriving outdoor leisure scene, Austin is drawing more attention to itself as an incubator for some of tech's hottest up and coming startups.
"We've always been called out as being a second-tier startup environment," investor and Osano founder Arlo Gilbert told Business Insider. "There was San Francisco, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and then Austin was like, five. And I think that most of us here have felt like that wasn't fair."
But with the arrival of Silicon Valley giants like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, tech industry notables have been forced to acknowledge Austin's thriving startup scene. One investor told Business Insider that when he moved from California to Texas, his colleagues in the Bay Area threw him a "Texas, not taxes," themed party.
And with its venture capital renaissance, Austin feels poised to give Silicon Valley a run for its investor money in 2020. So we asked them - which companies are armed and ready to take on Silicon Valley's red hot startup economy?