Austin insurance tech startup The Zebra is getting back to its roots.
The company established its first office in Austin's East Side back in 2012. It was in an old brick building, and on it was painted “SAVE ON CAR INSURANCE, BUY MORE TACOS.”
Well, The Zebra has grown up. It's team of roughly 60 back in 2016 when Inno first visited the company's offices has grown to 153. And, after leaving its East Side digs, it moved into the top two floors a high rise at 98 San Jacinto, overlooking Lady Bird Lake.
Now, it's settling into yet another space -- this one has the capacity to house about 300 employees (it has 13 jobs currently posted). The 43,000-square-foot space covers one and a half floors of 1801 East Sixth St., just a few blocks from its original digs.
The Zebra, which provides quick comparisons on auto insurance rates, has been among Austin's fastest-growing startups. It has raised $61 million-plus in venture backing, including a $40 million series B round led by Accel last year.
And it's new offices have many of the amenities you might expect from a growing tech company -- as well as a few you may not.
It has a coffee bar with an in-house barista, locker rooms and showers, a patio with a grill and proximity to public transit. It also has a large breakout room for training that holds about 50 people, and that also serves as a meeting room for the company's resource groups, which are focused on diversity and inclusion for women, people of color, immigrants and LGBTQ communities and allies, a news release says.
The company initially announced its plans for a new HQ in July.
"The Zebra has grown -- and grown up -- so much since 2012. In designing their custom office, we made sure to take the elements of mindfulness, efficiency, and modernity that make The Zebra so successful, and work them into the space," Chrystal Toth, CEO and principal of Chrystal Toth Designs, which was a brand strategy rep on the project, said in a news release. "The result features warm, earthy tones, and layering of organic textures with hyper modern clean lines. It's not your average insurance industry office."
Here's a few photos of the new space, courtesy of The Zebra and photographer Peter Molick.
