Category: Austin (Page 47 of 318)

A $1.1 billion Tesla Gigafactory for the Austin area took another big step in becoming a reality.

Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to approve a 20-year economic incentive package for the Colorado River Project, whose sole owner is Tesla.

County Judge Sam Biscoe, Commissioners Jeff Travillion, Brigid Shea, Gerald Daugherty all voted in favor of granting the incentives to Tesla. Precinct Four Commissioner Margaret Gomez abstained.

Gomez wanted another week to consider the deal, but after consulting via Zoom with Rohan Patel, Tesla’s North American Director of Policy and Business Development, the commissioners decided to take action.

Patel told the commissioners Tesla had met yesterday with another state governor and mayor and needed to move forward with the project. Earlier this month, Elon Musk, Co-Founder and CEO of Tesla, visited Tusla, Oklahoma, and met with the Oklahoma Governor. Tulsa is reported to be in the running as a site for the plant along with Austin.

The property tax abatement for Tesla approved by the county commissioners is worth an estimated $14.65 million as an incentive to have the electric vehicle manufacturing plant locate in Austin.

Travis County’s revised incentive package provides a 70 percent rebate on operations and maintenance taxes for an investment of $1.1 billion in the first five years with additional investment incentivized at 75 percent for investment from $1.1 billion to $2 billion and an 80 percent rebate on investment over $2 billion. Originally, Tesla requested an 80% incentive for the first ten years and a 65% incentive for the second ten years on its Travis County operations and maintenance tax liability related to incremental real and business personal.

Travis County will receive property tax revenue of approximately $8.8 million net over the first 10 years based on a $1.1 billion investment.

Construction jobs will start this year with a minimum wage of $15 an hour.

The Tesla jobs will provide a minimum wage of $15 an hour for employees with health insurance, paid leave and other benefits. Tesla has agreed to recruit workers from Del Valle schools, historically black colleges and universities, and to work with Workforce Solutions Capital Area. It has also agreed to provide local training and apprenticeship programs, and to work with the county’s workforce program for residents exiting the criminal justice system.

Tesla has pledged to hire at least 50 percent of its employees from Travis Country. Tesla’s jobs will pay more than $35,000 a year with benefits including equity in the company or its cash equivalent.

Tesla has also agreed to invest the equivalent of 10 percent of its tax liability to community programs such as affordable housing and public transportation. It is also partnering with the country to donate right of way and build a road through the site to serve as Austin’s Colony flood evacuation route.

“The number of jobs that the project creates will also provide a significant fiscal impact to the community as a whole,” according to a report prepared for the county commissioners. “Travis County has over 80,000 unemployed workers. Fully half of those workers are reported to have been earning less than $30,000 a year before being laid off primarily from hospitality jobs.”

The plant is proposed to be located on 2,100 acres at SH 130 and Harold Green Road. It’s currently a sand and gravel site owned by Martin Marietta. It houses a concrete batch plant that serves local construction projects. That plant would operate for a while and then be relocated, according to Tesla’s application. Tesla plans to pay $5.3 million for the various parcels of land, which are under contract, according to its filing with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

The electric vehicle manufacturing plant will make Tesla’s Cyber truck and it will have one or more product lines totaling four to five million square feet resulting in a $1 billion investment in new construction and business personal property, according to the document.

For the past four weeks, Travis County Commissioners have heard testimony from residents in favor of and against the plant. On Tuesday, they heard from more callers in favor and against the plant. Travis County Commissioners Court received more than 400 emails and letters from regional and state residents, union and labor representatives, Chambers of Commerce, and many others. In past meetings, Travis County Commissioners also heard from 70 people who called into the court to comment.

“The majority of the input expressed support for Tesla locating in Travis County and supported an economic development incentive agreement that required compliance verification by Travis County,” according to a court document. “Other public comment requested specific deal terms on wage floors, unionization rights and worker safety be included in the contract. A smaller amount of the input requested that Commissioners Court refrain from entering into an agreement that provides property tax rebates to a large corporation.”

“The terms of the incentive, as negotiated, strike a balance between incentivizing the firm to both locate and expand in Travis County, securing significant community benefits, and ensuring the protection of workers and the environment,” according to the county.

Last week, the Del Valle Independent School District board of trustees approved a tax incentive deal for Tesla worth nearly $50 million over 10 years.

Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday took no action on granting economic incentives for a proposed $1 billion Tesla Gigafactory in the Austin area.

Following a three-hour-long closed executive session, the commissioners’ court heard again from callers in support and against the Tesla plant. Then they moved to recess its meeting until Wednesday at 1 p.m. to give its economic development personnel time to answer questions brought up in executive session.

Travis County Commissioners are considering whether to grant a 20-year property tax abatement as an incentive to have the electric vehicle manufacturing plant locate here.

Under the agreement, Tesla would pay all of its taxes due on the property and then be rebated 80 percent for the first ten years and 65 percent for the last ten years if it meets all the county’s requirements, according to Diana Ramirez, Travis County’s Director of Economic Development and Strategic Investment. Tesla has also agreed to spend at least 10 percent of its rebate supporting various social service programs in the Austin area.

For the past three weeks, Travis County Commissioners have heard testimony from residents in favor of and against the plant. The court could take action on the project tomorrow.

The $1 billion Tesla plant is not a done deal for Austin. Tesla’s Founder Elon Musk visited Tulsa, Oklahoma over the fourth of July weekend to look at sites there for the proposed Gigafactory. Oklahoma is making a huge push to recruit Tesla.

The agreement the Travis County Commissioners Court is considering is with the Colorado River Project, with Tesla, as the sole owner.

Tesla’s Gigafactory will create 5,000 new jobs paying at least $15 an hour. The plant’s jobs will have an average annual salary of $47,147 with full benefits, according to the filing with the Texas County Commissioners.

The plant is proposed to be located on 2,100 acres at SH 130 and Harold Green Road. It’s currently a sand and gravel site owned by Martin Marietta. It houses a concrete batch plant that serves local construction projects. That plant would operate for a while and then be relocated, according to Tesla’s application. Tesla plans to pay $5.3 million for the various parcels of land, which are under contract, according to its filing with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

The electric vehicle manufacturing plant will make Tesla’s Cyber truck and it will have one or more product lines totaling four to five million square feet resulting in a $1 billion investment in new construction and business personal property, according to the document.

Tesla has said it could begin construction soon pending all required approvals, according to its application for a tax abatement with the Del Valle Independent School District, filed with the Texas Comptrollers Office in May, and amended in July.

Construction is expected to take two to three years. Tesla is seeking additional incentives from the Del Valle Independent School District.

Austin-based Hypergiant Industries on Tuesday announced a partnership with the United States Air Force to develop a new type of satellite that can be easily updated and reconfigured in space.

Hypergiant plans to launch the first live satellite on NG-15, the 15^th planned flight of the Northrup Grumman robotic resupply spacecraft Cygnus in February of 2021.

“Based on the success of that mission, we intend to start rolling out the rest of the constellation over the next two years,” Ben Lamm, CEO of Hypergiant, wrote in an email in response to questions about the project.

It is known as Hypergiant Project Chameleon, which will ultimately include between 24 to 36 satellites in a constellation configuration, Lamm said. It’s called chameleon because it can change and be reconfigured through software updates.

The satellites will form a network that will work together and allow them to set up a computer system in lower earth orbit that can communicate with ground stations as well, Lamm said.

In the past, Hypergiant has talked about creating an Internet for outer space to eventually connect settlements on the moon and Mars.

“While this is an independent constellation, this is a critical step from a technology perspective to some of our longer-term ambitions including an interplanetary comms and relay network,” Lamm said.

Hypergiant will be able to update the satellites easier and faster than regular satellites because it is working with the Air Force Platform One system and architecture, Lamm said.

“This architecture coupled with our hardware and software will allow for a secure environment to update code in real-time,” he said.

The Air Force and Space Force are currently the focus of the constellation, and will be its main users, Lamm said. The Chameleon Constellation is being funded by the Air Force’s Small Business Innovation Research grants. Hypergiant is working towards a $10 million phase three contract with direct Air Force and Space Force weapon system support, Lamm said.

“We need to be able to put assets in space as quickly as possible and then continuously improve them to maintain superiority,” U.S. Air Force Major Rob Slaughter, Director of the Department of Defense’s Platform One, said in a news statement. “In order for the US to remain competitive and protect the systems that run the lives of everyday Americans, we created a solution that allows for continuous software delivery in space. The only difference between a national security system and space junk is the software that operates it. Americans deserve the best space protections possible.”

The space sector is becoming more important than ever and lowering the cost of launches and additional privatization and commercialization allows more innovative entrants into the market than just legacy defense partners and governments, Lamm said. 

“The new space race is here and is being driven by both innovations in hardware and software,” Lamm said. “The industry is at a transition point shifting from a predominantly hardware industry to one that is being advanced and innovated through software.”

Hypergiant will be able to leverage distributed computing in space for satellite to satellite machine learning and will be able to reconfigure those satellites on the fly to tailor them to the needs of a new mission, Lamm said.

“Let’s say a volcano erupts and there isn’t an imaging satellite in range, the Chameleon Constellation could be reconfigured in real-time to support the efforts,” Lamm said. “This planned Chameleon Constellation of 24 to 36 satellites could switch within minutes from providing communications to taking pictures of the disaster and aiding first responders.”

Founded in 2018, Hypergiant Industries has offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The company has 230 employees. The company’s space division, Hypergiant Galactic Systems, focuses on AI-driven software and hardware for the space industry with 24 employees specifically working on space solutions.

The software components for the project were mostly built in Austin and the hardware was built in Houston.

“The constellation will be operated using our H.I.V.E. satellite operations platform which was designed and developed in Austin,” Lamm said.

In February of 2019, Hypergiant acquired Satellite & Extraterrestrial Operations & Procedures, also known as S.E.O.P.s, a Houston-based satellite deployment, and services provider for the CubeSat and MicroSat markets. Hypergiant has already completed four deployed missions (NG10, NG11, NG12, and NG13) with a 100 percent mission success rate and has worked with NASA, Army Space, DARPA, Lynk, Dynetics, and Amazon Web Services.

“This is just another measured step for us as we continue to apply our disruptive development abilities and artificial intelligence expertise into an incredibly challenging industry that is ripe for disruption,” Lamm said. “We love how aspirational space is for all mankind and are honored to be moving progress forward in any way we can. The Chameleon Constellation is one of two Hypergiant-owned satellite constellations we are developing that leverage our Constellation-as-a-service infrastructure that we have been using for some of our commercial and federal clients.”

In 2018, GoDaddy bought Main Street Hub in Austin for $125 million plus $50 million more in future earnouts.

On Wednesday, GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani announced plans to shut down its Austin operations and layoff 331 employees.

“The Social team in Austin has turned over every stone in the last three months to address the seismic shift caused by COVID-19,” Bhutani wrote in a letter to employees. “While the team made strides in selling our new lower-cost offering, with reduced demand and economics under pressure, we cannot continue to sell these products the way we do today.”

GoDaddy is closing both its Austin offices. GoDaddy’s main office was at 2010 E 6th St.

The laid-off employees are on paid administrative leave until Sept. 1^st and they will keep their same healthcare benefits through Sept. 30^th. Then the company will provide 90 days of severance pay and paid healthcare benefits through the end of the year.

GoDaddy is also providing laid-off employees with three months of outplacement services for job service support and employee assistance through the end of the year.

GoDaddy, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, also reported on Wednesday that the company continues to grow in the face of global economic challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The company has seen strong demand in its business, led by Domains and its Websites + Marketing offering, and management now expects second-quarter revenue to exceed previously issued guidance of $790 million by approximately 1%,” according to a news release.

Overall, GoDaddy’s restructuring impacts approximately 814 employees, who are either departing, relocating, or transitioning to other roles.

“Please know that these changes are a function of our current environment and are not a reflection on any one individual or team,” Bhutani wrote. “You are talented folks who have contributed positively to the company. The core of the GoDaddy business continues to be strong and we will look to hire team members back as we continue to grow.”

OJO Labs on Wednesday announced a $62.5 million round of funding and the acquisition of Movoto, a residential real estate search site.

“It brings together two superpowers overnight,” said John Berkowitz, CEO, and Co-Founder of OJO Labs.

Austin-based OJO Labs, founded in 2015, has been working for the past five years to create a deeply personalized technology and engaging consumer experience, Berkowitz said. The acquisition of Movoto enables OJO Labs to scale rapidly and bring its technology to millions of homebuyers and sellers, he said.

The Austin VC and tech ecosystem led to the new round and the acquisition, Berkowitz said.

Krishna Srinivasan, a general partner at LiveOak Venture Partners and an investor in OJO Labs, introduced Berkowitz to Russell Valdez, chief investment officer for Wafra, who lives in Austin. Wafra, the investment platform with $25 billion under management, led the round with participation from Breyer Capital, LiveOak Venture Partners, Royal Bank of Canada, and Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures.

“The way people buy and sell homes is changing,” Jim Breyer, Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, a premier venture capital firm, and former Facebook and Walmart board member said in a news release. “This evolution has been expedited by recent events, and the real estate industry is on the cusp of something new in the wake of COVID-19. With a clear vision for the future and the technology to back it up, I believe OJO Labs is poised to be a leader in the next era of the homebuying industry.” 

OJO Labs raised $45 million last March with the goal of hiring more people and deploying its platform to as many people as possible. In that process, Berkowitz came across Movoto, the only privately held company at the scale that they are at, Berkowitz said.

“The Movoto team culture, vision all matched,” Berkowitz said.

OJO has created a virtual assistant that helps homebuyers and sellers. Its agent uses natural conversations conducted via mobile messages to help a person find a house. Movoto is “the fastest growing top 5 residential real estate search site in the U.S. with nearly 24 million monthly visits,” according to the news release.

Movoto allowed OJO to leap to scale, Berkowitz said.

“We’ve been solving really hard technological problems for the last five years with end to end solutions,” Berkowitz said. “We’ve been building it to be able to scale.”

Now with the acquisition of Movoto, we’ve got a massive at scale real estate website with personalization, Berkowitz said.

“This is something that hasn’t existed in real estate before,” he said.

“Buying and selling a home is complex and high stakes, yet homebuyers are left to navigate much of the journey on their own,” Imtiyaz Haque, CEO of Movoto said in a news release. “We’ve come together to create a solution that guides consumers every step of the way, driving homebuyer, and seller readiness and more confident decision making.”

To date, OJO Labs has raised $138.5 million and Movoto is its third acquisition. Last October, OJO Labs acquired Austin-based RealSavvy to create an even bigger platform for real estate brokers, agents, and teams and the customers they serve. And in 2018, OJO Labs merged with real estate data giant, WolfNet Technologies, based in St. Paul, Minn. 

The collective company now has about 350 employees. Movoto, based in San Mateo, California, will keep its office there, although some of those employees may move to Austin, Berkowitz said.

Right now, during the Pandemic, OJO Labs’ employees are working remotely. It has about 100 employees in Austin.

Last August, OJO Labs moved into a beautiful new office space at 1007 South Congress Avenue in the CityView Building and the employees got to enjoy the office for a short time, Berkowitz said.

“We’re excited to get back to it,” he said.  

But COVID-19 has forced OJO Labs to adapt and evolve, he said. OJO also has offices in St. Paul, and on the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. It was easier to turn its U.S. operations remote than it was for the St. Lucia operation. But everyone is working remotely now, Berkowitz said.

And the demand for OJO Lab’s product has been skyrocketing during the Pandemic as people are forced to stay home. Many of them have turned to real estate sites to find a new home with the amenities they want like a home office, backyard, bigger kitchen, swimming pool, etc.

“If we were a publicly-traded company, our stock would be like Zoom,” Berkowitz said. “Every metric is up and to the right.”

“There is a trend that happens in real estate – over the holidays and end of the year – people spend a lot of time packed in at home with their families,” Berkowitz said. That is for just two weeks over the holidays and it leads people to search for real estate, he said. That trend is exacerbated during the Pandemic.

“The reality is there is a real shift in how people think about the home and the wholistic nature of it which is great if you’re in real estate,” Berkowitz said.

Also, during the Pandemic, OJO Labs helped other companies get Paycheck Protection Program loans through the Small Business Administration even though OJO Labs didn’t take a PPP loan itself, Berkowitz said.

“We are serious about leaning into social injustice,” Berkowitz said.

“Even in our darkest day, that money wasn’t meant for us,” Berkowitz said. “I didn’t want to be part of other companies taking the money that was meant for others.”

OJO Labs knew it was going to get through the Pandemic and thrive, Berkowitz said.

“That’s no fun if we thrive but I can’t get a margarita at a restaurant because they didn’t get PPP money,” he said.

OJO Labs wanted the money to get into the hands of businesses that needed it more than they did, Berkowitz said. OJO Labs partnered with Keystone Bank to help other businesses in Austin get PPP loans and it also helped those businesses navigate the process and answered their questions.

“It’s in crisis when people are tested, we showed up for work and did our job,” Berkowitz said.

Operating a company during a Pandemic is hard, Berkowitz said. Operating a company and doing good, raising money and buying a company is really, really hard, he said.

But that’s exactly what the team at OJO Labs has done, Berkowitz said.

“I’ve asked them to do the impossible and they delivered,” he said.

Telsa officials gave more details on its proposed $1 billion Cybertruck factory in the Austin area.

Rohan Patel, Tesla’s director of policy and business development, and Valerie Workman, Tesla’s head of human resources for North America, appeared via video before the Travis County Commissioners Court Tuesday afternoon.

Tesla is seeking a 20-year tax abatement on the project. It would pay all of its taxes due and then be rebated 80 percent for the first ten years and 65 percent for the last ten years if it meets all the county’s requirements, said Diana Ramirez, Travis County’s Director of Economic Development and Strategic Investment. Tesla has also agreed to spend at least 10 percent of its rebate supporting various social service programs in the Austin area.

The meeting which lasted more than four hours also featured staff presentations and recommendations on the Tesla factory and about 50 people called in to voice their support and opposition to the Tesla factory. The Travis County Commissioners did not take any action on the project, but plan to review it again at next week’s meeting, said Travis County Judge Sam Briscoe.

Tesla’s proposed Gigafactory will create 5,000 new jobs. The plant’s jobs will have an average annual salary of $47,147 with full benefits, according to the filing with the Texas County Commissioners. The jobs will pay at least $15 an hour.

The plant is to be located on 2,100 acres at SH 130 and Harold Green Road. It’s currently a sand and gravel site owned by Martin Marietta. 

Tesla has not yet made a final decision on where its plant will be located. It is considering Austin and some other locations.

“Over the last five months, our team has heard from nearly every state and governor east of the Rocky Mountains,” Patel said.

“I just want to say that our factory will have a huge environmental positive impact, and as we have elsewhere, we’re going to design that into the factory itself,” Patel said. “That includes recycling elements into every part of the facility for its products, for water, for heat.”

There are pros and cons to each site Tesla is considering in the Austin region and Travis County and elsewhere outside of Texas, Patel said.

“Compared to other states, you’ve got high property taxes in Texas,” Patel said. “That’s especially true for businesses like Tesla with extremely high machinery and equipment costs. So we’ve got as part of our production, literally some of the most expensive equipment on the planet. And that’s considered part of the property taxes in Texas.”

Other states and local governments are providing much more significant tax incentive agreements, Patel said. In many cases, completely eliminating property taxes and other business taxes for 20 years plus, he said.

“We haven’t asked for that in Texas, but similar to what other larger manufacturers have in place in order to make the economics work for us, but maybe, more importantly, to provide a win for the county, to provide a win for the school district and a win for the community,” Patel said. “The incentives here in Texas and in Travis County would not be a reason for us to choose this location or Texas, but they are a prerequisite to make the economics of a factory work.”

Patel highlighted three reasons Austin and Travis County and this particular site have risen to the top in Tesla’s search. Number one is Tesla needs a diverse workforce in terms of people and skillsets, ranging from production workers to engineers.

“About two-thirds of the workforce that we’re going to need will be production associates, entry-level work,” he said. “With a high school degree with a little training, we can get you out there. And the Austin region has that workforce in terms of the high-level PHDs but also in terms of some of the production associates that we would need and material handlers.”

Number two is the site along the Colorado River has the potential to be “great for recreation, for beauty, and the vision of being able to potentially transform an old mining site into a sustainable factory with recreational opportunities, that’s just a vision that fits perfectly with our mission,” Patel said.

And finally, Tesla has had a lot of meetings with the school district and believes strongly that a partnership with Del Valle Schools would be advantageous for the local students and would also be advantageous for Tesla in terms of accelerating our efforts to mentor students, to develop and train the next generation of the workforce, Patel said.

He also said one of his favorite meetings was with Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette, president of Huston-Tillotson University and if Tesla picks Travis County, a partnership with Huston-Tillotson will be at the top of his list of priorities from day one, he said.

Tesla is committed to hiring locally to fill the jobs at its plant wherever it chooses to locate, said Workman. She also went into detail about the training programs Tesla provides and its outreach to local teachers and students. Tesla wants to get kids interested in sustainability from a young age, she said.

Travis County has received letters of support for the Tesla plant from Huston-Tillotson University, The University of Texas, Austin Community College, Workforce Solutions Capital Area, Opportunity Austin, the Hispanic Chamber, the Asian Chamber, the Black Chamber, the LGBT Chamber, the Greater Austin Chamber, and the Austin Regional Manufacturers Association.

In addition, Travis County Commissioners have received 190 emails in support of the Tesla factory and 60 against it, said Ramirez, Travis County’s Director of Economic Development and Strategic Investment.

Callers in opposition to the plant raised concerns about Elon Musk, a billionaire, receiving tax incentives. They also voiced concerns about Tesla’s treatment of employees and their efforts to unionize at plants. Some were concerned that the pay was too low for Travis County residents and it would put an additional burden on the county to supply affordable housing. Another caller worried that Tesla would not honor its commitments to Travis County. One caller voiced concerns about additional environmental emissions the plant would create. Another caller said that Tesla hadn’t done enough to keep its employees safe during the COVID-19 pandemic at its California plant. And they worried that type of behavior might occur here.

Callers in favor of the plant praised the investment it would bring to a part of Travis County that needs more corporate investment. Some also applauded Musk and his vision and said that Tesla is working to save the planet. Others said it would be a huge benefit for the Del Valle Independent School District to have Tesla as a partner. And another caller said the manufacturing jobs are greatly needed especially now in the face of huge job losses in the area resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Last year, ScaleFactor made the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce’s A-List of Hottest Startups in the mid-sized category.

On Tuesday, ScaleFactor announced plans to shut down after raising $103 million from investors – including $90 million in 2019. Its investors included Coatue Management, Bessemer Venture Partners, Canaan, Broadhaven Ventures, Firebrand Ventures, Vulcan, Stripes Group, and NextPlay Capital.

The company, founded by Kurt Rathmann, CEO and founder, and Corey Bach, CFO and founder, graduated from the Techstars Austin incubator in 2017.

It’s the biggest shut down of an Austin-based startup that has raised more than $100 million since Calxeda, an Austin Technology Incubator company, shut down in December of 2013. Calxeda, with 125 employees, had raised more than $100 million since its inception in 2008. The company ran out of money while trying to create a new type of low-power computer chip.

ScaleFactor, founded in 2014, made business management software that automates bookkeeping for small to mid-sized businesses in the U.S.

Rathmann made the announcement to the company’s employees Tuesday afternoon, according to a post on the company’s website. ScaleFactor had 100 employees, after laying off 40 employees in February, according to a story in Forbes.

“Today, we announced that ScaleFactor is suspending a majority of its operations on August 28^th,” Rathmann said. “To that end, we will be saying goodbye to half of our team members today and asking the remainder of the team to help us in finding our current customers a good home.”

Employees will be offered a minimum of 12 weeks of severance pay and ScaleFactor will pay for COBRA health insurance payments through the end of the year. The company also plans to provide recruiting support and outplacement services to laid-off employees. It is also letting employees keep their computers and equipment.

ScaleFactor plans to continue to support its customers and then transition them to other services in July and August.

“Rathmann says the pandemic wiped out almost half of ScaleFactor’s sales; the startup had reached $7 million in annual recurring revenue at the end of 2019,” according to the Forbes story. But the story also says the company may have been in trouble before the Pandemic struck when it changed its business model and laid off 40 employees in February.

Canva, an Australian online graphic design platform, announced Tuesday that it is opening an office in Austin and investing in its U.S. operations.

The office will provide support for Canva’s enterprise clients and nonprofit organizations.

Canva, based in Sydney, Australia, also announced it has raised a new $60 million round of funding, giving the company a new valuation of $6 billion, up from a previous $3.2 billion valuation.

Despite the economic downturn as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company continues to see a significant increase in user activity, Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht said in a news release.

“Canva’s accelerated growth is indicative of the “new normal”, as more teams realize the need for a more scalable, more collaborative, more affordable and more user-friendly design platform,” Obrecht said.

Canva attributes the doubling in the valuation to its strong growth as a workplace collaboration platform. It has seen an increase in users as the world shifts online resulting from the global Pandemic. More than 30 million people use Canva every month to design presentations, marketing materials, social media content, videos, and more. That equates to more than 80 designs per second and more than 3 billion designs created since Canva launched in 2012.

Canva has seen a 50 percent increase since the start of COVID-19. As a result, the company is rolling out some new workplace collaboration features aimed at teams including Canva’s Real-time Collaboration, Canva Brainstorms, Canva Talking Presentations, and Canva for Desktop.

Canva is also eyeing acquisitions to further its international growth.

 “We’re open to investment opportunities in the media and editing space as we continue on our mission to provide a comprehensive and valuable product,” Canva Cofounder Obrecht said in a news release. “Ultimately, we want Canva to be the go-to platform for all your design needs, so we’ll continue to monitor and evaluate acquisition opportunities.”

John Eitel, vice president of sales at Canva, is leading the US office.

“In light of COVID-19, we are mostly working remotely right now, but long term plan is to have an office where we can all work together,” Eitel said in an email response to questions.

” We plan to triple our current team of 20 this year, building out our sales and marketing functions for the Enterprise, Education, and Partnerships teams, plus support across Finance, HR and Legal,” he said.

Canva picked Austin for its U.S. office because the city is ” an exciting tech hub that offers a wealth of local talent while enabling us to support customers across several US time zones,” Eitel said. “We’re also in great company here, with an array of large enterprises and technology innovators, that offer excellent partnership opportunities. “

“We’re building a new US home where everyone loves coming to work, and Austin is an exciting setting that will help us achieve this,” he said.

Canva for Enterprise: Elevate 2020

Canva for Enterprise will hold its first major virtual conference on July 29, 2020, to kick-off Canva Elevate 2020 – a virtual event series where experts will discuss the future of brand consistency and design collaboration. 
Canva CEO and Co-Founder, Melanie Perkins, will expand on Canva for Enterprise’s plans for the US and beyond, followed by talks from leading marketers from HubSpot, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services and others. 
Sessions will take place from 1 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Central time and anyone can register for free here.

“We recommend the conference for those interested in hearing more about Canva for Enterprise’s strategy and the latest developments within the wider branding space,” Eitel said.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated with the latest information.

As Austin quickly becomes a hotspot for the spread of the COVID-19 virus, city leaders took action Monday to require people to wear face masks.

Effective at midnight on Monday, all businesses must require their employees, customers, and vendors to wear masks in Austin, according to the latest order from Mayor Steve Adler.

Last week, Mayor Adler warned businesses to prepare their safety plans and asked that masks be used by employees, customers, and vendors. His latest order makes face masks mandatory.

And Monday afternoon, the Opening Central Texas for Business Task Force, along with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce debuted a new campaign “Austin, Let’s Be a City of Us” to encourage everyone to wear a face mask to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

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Austin Chamber President and CEO Laura Huffman, Mayor Adler, and Roy Spence, with Spence Communications, introduced the campaign during a press conference held online on Zoom.

“I love thinking of our city as a city of us because that’s so true,” Mayor Adler said.

This city’s residents were “willing to act to selflessly” in the common good and that helped prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the early stages but now cases are on the rise, and it’s time to buckle down again, Mayor Adler said.

“This is gut-check time,” Mayor Adler said.  “Are we as a community willing to step out and help one another?”

Cases of COVID-19 are skyrocketing and hospitalizations are increasing in Texas and Central Texas is seeing a big uptick.

On Monday, Texas has 114,881 cases of people testing positive for Coronavirus and 2,192 deaths. An estimated, 69,190 people have recovered from the disease in Texas.

Austin and Travis County have 6,399 people who have tested positive for COVID-19, up 1,053 cases from Friday, resulting in 112 lives lost, according to Adler. There are 181 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Austin area, with 86 in the ICU and 32 on ventilators.

The City of US campaign, created by Spence, CEO of Spence Communications, encourages Austinites to wear a face mask to protect against another spike in COVID-19. Spence is the creator of the “Don’t Mess With Texas slogan and antilitter campaign. He is also a founder of GSD&M.

“When you go out, wear a mask,” Spence said. “A mask on each of us will be a win for all of us. It will be a win for our small businesses. If we all wear a mask into these retail outlets, that’s one less thing that small business owners and their staff have to worry about.”

Spence said he got inspired to create the campaign when he noticed there is an US in Austin.

“When we are at our best, we are a better us,” he said.

“Local television stations will begin running the public service announcement this week,” according to a news release. The video features the song “Touch the Sky” by Austin-based Grammy-nominated group Black Pumas.  

The Chamber has prepared a free digital toolkit for businesses at AustinCityofUs.com.

“We are still very much in the middle of this virus,” Adler said. “If our city is going to avoid pulling back on the economy or having our hospitals overwhelmed, we have to do something.”

This campaign empowers the community to do something to help each other and to help the economy, he said.

“Yes, we’ve relaxed too much,” Adler said. “Too many people have believed we are beyond this crisis, but we are in the middle of this. “

This is actually a boots on the ground campaign, Huffman said. Each business in Austin needs to be a part of this campaign, she said.

The Austin Emergency Supply Foundation is working to get free masks to small businesses, she said.

“If there is a US in Austin there is also a US in business, and that’s what we’re leaning into today,” Huffman said.

“When we have the power of us, there is no stopping us on what we can do together,” Spence said. “We are a city of goodness.”