Fremont Called Out as “Hot New Address” for tech startups in Silicon Valley

In case you missed it, San Jose Mercury News technology writer Michelle Quinn recently highlighted both Fremont and Berkeley as the “hot new address” for tech startups. Fremont has long been a stealth player in the startup scene, but no longer! Thanks to recognition like this, substantial VC investment (more than $400 million!), and robust startup ecosystem (Startup Grind), Fremont is holding its own in this arena. The original article is below, along with a great photo from Genze, one of our favorite startups in Fremont’s Innovation District.

The hot new address for a tech startup these days is not on University Avenue in Palo Alto or overlooking the play structure in South Park in San Francisco.

Try Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley or the Innovation District in Fremont.

Once confined to the South Bay, the tech industry spread up the Peninsula and into San Francisco. Now it is expanding once again, this time into regions that didn’t see themselves as part of the tech scene.

Taking a page from cities around the globe that have worked to rebrand themselves as tech hubs, the Bay Area’s newest tech centers are starting to capitalizeon their proximity to the heart of Silicon Valley.

It came as a surprise to me that over the past two years, companies in Fremont received more than $400 million in venture funding in more than 45 deals, according to PitchBook Data, a private financial market data provider.

Berkeley companies, in over 77 deals, also received more than $400 million.

Those amounts aren’t anywhere close to the cash given to entrepreneurs in the traditional boundaries of Silicon Valley or San Francisco. But what is happening in Fremont and Berkeley is an indication that cities far from the heart of the valley are building out their own technology hubs.

Fremont has long been a Silicon Valley bedroom community and an important manufacturing hub. But when it comes to tech startups,Fremont often gets overlooked.

That perception began to change when a 2012 study by SizeUp, a San Francisco provider of business intelligence, pointed out that Fremont had 21 tech startups for every 100,000 people.

“It was as much of a surprise to us as to everyone else,” said Kelly Kline, Fremont’s economic development director and the city’s chief innovation officer.

Part of Fremont’s tech growth can be attributed to the Tesla effect. In 2010, the electric car manufacturer moved into the sprawling 5.3 million square feet of manufacturing and office space that used to be occupied by NUMMI, the former Toyota/General Motors partnership. That in turn attracted entrepreneurs interested in clean tech to what is now Fremont’s Warm Springs Innovation District.

But the city has also become a magnet for biotech firms and companies working on connected devices, known as the “Internet of Things.”

Still, it’s hard to get a true sense of the city’s entrepreneurial ferment.

“Most of these people are pre business license, pre sign on the door,” said Kline. “They’re in stealth mode.”

Read the rest of the article on: http://bayareane.ws/1WWzwgL