Heading east

Another West Coast tech company relocates headquarters to Austin in big move

CrowdStreet is moving in this summer.

Nicholas McComber/Getty Images

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.

technology

Self-driving Roller Coaster

More self-driving cars expected to roll out in Austin for 2025

Photo courtesy of Waymo via KVUE

Various brands offering self-driving cars are on-and-off in Austin.

Expect to see more self-driving rideshare vehicles, also known as robotaxis, on Austin roads next year.

Robotaxi company Waymo, which you may have already seen on Austin's roads, is partnering with Uber. At some point next year, customers will be able to use the Uber app to call a self-driving ride.

Austin-based company Avride is in the testing phase and plans to roll out its robotaxis next year.

Currently, Volkswagen ADMT and Amazon's Zoox are in the testing phase in Austin, while Hyundai's Motional is in the mapping phase.

Last year, robotaxi company Cruise paused operations in Austin after the California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the company's permits to operate driverless vehicles in the state. And last week, General Motors said it would no longer fund the company because of the time and resources needed.

This way of getting around has come with its safety concerns and issues. The city is tracking those concerns. According to the Transportation Department, the problems span from blocking the roads and parking in front of people's homes for weeks with lights beaming through their windows, to actual wrecks.

Since July 2023, robotaxis have been involved in 75 incidents. Only 21 of those incidents happened in 2024. It's important to note that Cruise has not been operating in Austin this year.

Since July 2023, driverless rideshare vehicles have been involved in 22 near collisions, eight collisions and seven instances where driverless taxis ignored directions from the Austin Police Department (APD).

According to the data, at least four of those Austin police incidents happened in recent months. The issues varied from driving through police checkpoints, to malfunctioning and getting stuck at an APD road closure near pedestrians, causing safety concerns.

A Waymo spokesperson said their vehicles have gesture recognition capabilities, which they've been training APD officers on using.

As the report shows, sometimes it does not work and Waymo said it is working to improve that. The spokesperson said that as of just last week, Waymo's First Responder Program has been independently verified by TÜV SÜD, making Waymo the first autonomous vehicle (AV) company to receive third-party validation for our emergency response protocols. They also said the data to date indicates the Waymo Driver is already reducing traffic injuries and fatalities in the places where the company currently operates.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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