Silicon Hills is a nickname for the cluster 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.

Silicon Hills
Location of Silicon Hills
CountryUnited States
StateTexas
CityAustin

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.

Venture capital, incubators and accelerators

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Austin was one of the top areas for venture capital with investors investing $621 million in 2013[4] (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.[5] There are at least 15 startup incubators as well, including: Capital Factory, Austin Technology Incubator, DivInc, Founder's Institute, Tarmac and the IC2 Institute[6] (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.

 
Austin Venture capital investment over time

List of tech companies with a presence in the Austin area

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See also

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References

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  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. ^ Zimmerman, Eilene (July 17, 2013). "Austin's 'Silicon Hills' Builds on Its Infrastructure". The New York Times.
  5. ^ "Austin venture capital firms every entrepreneur should know".
  6. ^ "IC² Institute, The University of Texas at Austin - Innovation, Creativity, Capital".
  7. ^ "Office Tour: Atlassian Offices – Austin". 1 February 2016. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  8. ^ "Austin's Fast 50: Quick-growing companies to watch". Austin Business Journal. 5 September 2019. Retrieved 6 December 2021.