Silicon Hills

Silicon Hills
Tech hub
CountryUnited States
StateTexas
CityAustin

Silicon Hills is a nickname for the tech hub comprising a collection of high-tech companies in the Austin metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Texas.[1][2] Silicon Hills has been a nickname for Austin since the mid-1990s. The name is analogous to Silicon Valley, but refers to the hilly terrain on the west side of Austin. High tech industries in the area include enterprise software, semiconductors, corporate R&D, biotechnology, the video game industry, and a variety of startup companies.

Technology companies with offices in the area include Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon.com, Apple Inc., ARM Holdings, Cisco, eBay, Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), IBM, Indeed, Intel, NXP Semiconductors, PayPal, Procore, Silicon Labs, Texas Instruments, Oracle Corporation, Visa, VMWare, and many others.[3] Dell's worldwide headquarters are located in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin.

History

Austin's tech industry began during World War II, with defense research conducted at the University of Texas. Austin's first tech startup, the defense electronics contractor Tracor, was founded in 1962 by University of Texas researchers. It would become Austin's first publicly-traded company to be listed on Fortune 500. Thanks to recruitment efforts by the Austin Chamber of Commerce starting in the 50s, a number of tech companies began to locate in Austin. In 1967, the city was chosen by IBM for the location of a new factory producing Selectric typewriters. By 1974, Motorola, Texas Instruments, and Westinghouse had factories in Austin. Rapid growth began in the 80s, when MCC and SEMATECH, two major electronics research consortia, were headquartered in Austin. In 1984, 3M Company moved its research and development division to Austin. The same year, Dell was founded by University of Texas freshman Michael Dell, and would eventually become the largest global producer of personal computers.[4][5][6]

Venture capital, incubators and accelerators

Austin was one of the top areas for venture capital with investors investing $621 million in 2013[7] (43% of that went to software and semiconductor firms). Some venture capital investors include Austin Ventures, Central Texas Angels Network, Genesis UT, and Tritium Partners.[8] There are at least 15 startup incubators as well, including: Capital Factory, Austin Technology Incubator, DivInc, Founder's Institute, Tarmac and the IC2 Institute[9] (the incubator for the University of Texas at Austin). Additionally, Austin houses several startup accelerators including Sputnik ATX venture-accelerator, Tech Stars, and Mass Challenge TX.

List of tech companies with a presence in the Austin area

Main article: List of companies based in Austin, Texas

See also

References

  1. ^ Zimmerman, Eilene (17 July 2013). "Austin's 'Silicon Hills' Builds on Its Infrastructure".
  2. ^ Williams, Sarah (9 March 2016). "Could Austin — the 'Silicon Hills' of Texas — become the next biotech hub?". STAT news. STAT. Retrieved 29 June 2016.
  3. ^ "The Top 100 Digital Tech Employers in Austin".
  4. ^ "A Short History of Austin's Economic Development | Austin Environmental Directory". www.environmentaldirectory.info. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  5. ^ Patoski, Joe Nick (2019). To ATX: the hippies, pickers, slackers & geeks who transformed the capital of Texas. College Station: Texas A & M University Press. pp. 211–212. ISBN 978-1-62349-703-3.
  6. ^ "How Austin became the fastest-growing tech hub in the US". Skybox Datacenters. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  7. ^ Zimmerman, Eilene (July 17, 2013). "Austin's 'Silicon Hills' Builds on Its Infrastructure". The New York Times.
  8. ^ "Austin venture capital firms every entrepreneur should know".
  9. ^ "IC² Institute, The University of Texas at Austin - Innovation, Creativity, Capital".
  10. ^ "Office Tour: Atlassian Offices – Austin". 1 February 2016. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  11. ^ "Austin's Fast 50: Quick-growing companies to watch". Austin Business Journal. 5 September 2019. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
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