At the start of this year, we brought you five predictions for 2019 crowdsourced from Boston tech experts. One of them is coming true.
Sarah Bedrick, co-founder at Compt, predicted that we’ll see the next wave of companies build out big second offices or outposts in Boston.
This prediction has been manifesting itself into reality for a while now and it is only growing stronger. Boston already won the accolade of being one of the best cities for job growth and opportunities and the word spread around Europe fast.
Earlier this month, Nexthink, a Switzerland-based IT analytics platform company, moved its U.S. headquarters to a larger office in Downtown Crossing and double its headcount. And Boston might be the target city for many French companies.
Klaxoon, a company that makes tools for effective team participation, is based in northwest France in the region of Bretagne, an hour from Paris. Although the four-year-old company has an office in NYC, its heart is set on Boston for expansion -- the company plans to hire 50 people in sales and customer relationship, all based in Boston, over this year.
"Boston is a city that knows how to share knowledge and innovating," said Klaxoon's communication manager Anne-Lyse Garçon.
For Klaxoon, it was the attractive talent pool that drew the company to Boston. For medical tech company Biomodex, it was the lure of capital and consistent demand. Founded in Paris in 2015, Biomodex makes 3D printed life-like organs for medical training and pre-operative planning and surgery rehearsals. The company decided to locate its U.S. office in Quincy, Mass. given Beantown's reputation for being a biotech hub.
"When we created the company, we immediately decided we had to be present in the U.S.," said Biomodex CEO and Chairman Thomas Marchand. "50 percent of the medical device market is in the US, so this [U.S. presence] important for us."
Biomodex's research and development team is based in France and its marketing and sales team is in Quincy. The company's U.S. staff is seven people strong and Marchand said that Biomodex will double the headcount by next year. The company wants to hire locally and has openings for clinical project manager and clinical field specialist roles.
Jerome Windsor, who is a member of the French American Chamber of Commerce, New England categorized French startup imports in three categories: Digital health, biotech and general software tech companies. He attributed the trend of migration to the quality of research talent in Boston.
"Over the years, we have seen an acceleration in movement of France exporting companies to the U.S.," said Windsor. "The quality of research is very good [in Boston], everyone wants a chance to succeed in the market."
According to a report released by the French Embassy last year, French companies employ close to 700,000 people in the U.S., making them the third largest foreign employers in the country. Incidentally, French companies are the third largest foreign employers in the state of Massachusetts as well, creating 28,200 jobs in the state.
"Boston celebrates entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship where other cities try to facilitate it," said Anne-Fleur Andrle, co-founder and CEO of Jack and Ferdi, an app that gives tips for business travelers to include leisure elements on their trips.
Andrle used to work for French companies establishing subsidiaries in Boston. When Andrle worked as an executive director at AMA XpertEye, a smart glasses maker from France, her team considered cities like Atlanta and New York City but finally went with Boston. "Boston just stood out," Andrle said. "The environment and the ecosystem here [is great] with entrepreneuers who are looking after you."
In a full circle, Andrle is looking to set up a French outpost for her Cambridge-based company Jack and Ferdi.
