2016 was a good year to be a tech startup in LA, and, with the $25 billion planned public offering for the city’s startup darling, Snap Inc., coming up, the future’s so bright entrepreneurs might want to wear… Spectacles.
Last year saw the city reap windfall exits from the acquisition of companies like Dollar Shave Club, and has a number of promising e-commerce companies waiting in the wings for their moment under the spotlights (looking at you Honest Co., Thrive Market, et al.).
It’s been a constant refrain (especially from the indispensable LA-based venture investor, Mark Suster) that LA has arrived as one of the top startup markets in the U.S. Now the ecosystem is coming together under the auspices of showing off the opportunities that tech offers local job-seekers.
In roughly two weeks, LA is going to host what’s being billed as its first major tech job fair, organized and co-hosted by none other than the city’s mayor, Eric Garcetti, and serial entrepreneur Jason Nazar.
For Nazar, chief executive of the LA-based startup Comparably, the job fair is the culmination of his stint as an entrepreneur-in-residence for the mayor’s office.
Launched by the mayor’s office in 2014, the EIR program is one example of how Garcetti is looking to embrace tech as a key component of Los Angeles’ future economic growth. It mirrors work that cities across the country have been doing to grow tech talent (check out Steve Case’s excellent Rise of the Rest tours that showcase other places that are cultivating tech ecosystems).
“Over the last decade, I’ve seen Los Angeles become one of the most vibrant Tech communities in the world,” says Nazar. “TechFair LA is our opportunity to provide thousands of jobs, to deserving candidates, at the best companies you could ever want to work for.”
More than 150 of the top tech companies in LA — including Snap, Dollar Shave Club, Tinder, Honest, Cornerstone OnDemand, GumGum, Laurel & Wolf and Hyperloop One — will be there taking questions and recruiting new hires.
The range of the companies in attendance — from artificial intelligence developers like GumGum, to consumer-facing companies like Dollar Shave, Honest, Tinder and Snap, to next-generation transportation tech companies like Hyperloop One — point to the depth and breadth of LA’s still-growing tech industry. Add to that mix companies like SpaceX (based in nearby Hawthorne) and you’ve got an incredible array of companies representing diverse industries and tremendous opportunity for the city.
“TechFair LA promises to be the tech community event of the year. A place where people in this world-changing industry will come to talk about new trends, to discuss new ideas, and to network with the leaders who are making it all happen,” said Garcetti in a statement.
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