A Boston company with a Tampa-based co-founder has hit the coveted $1 billion "unicorn" status.
Drift, a marketing and sales technology startup, has received an investment for an undisclosed amount from Austin-based Vista Equity Partners. While the company declined to comment further on the amount of funding, its co-founders stated it has now put the company over the $1 billion valuation mark. In the technology world, a private company valued at more than $1 billion is known as a unicorn.
"David and I are proud to be one of the only Latino-founded companies to ever achieve over $1 billion valuation — a rare, Latino-founded unicorn," Elias Torres, CTO and co-founder of Drift, said in a statement. "We want to see more of us do the same and we will pave the way for other Latino founders and leaders to achieve success."
Torres moved to the Tampa Bay region with four other employees in late 2019, after receiving the red carpet treatment from Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. He already had ties to the region, attending high school in Tampa Bay and staying to attend the University of South Florida.
"What we’re seeing is that geography is going to be more about your what fits your lifestyle and think Tampa has so much to offer," Torres said in a previous interview with the Tampa Bay Business Journal. "From a business perspective, it's become such a distributed system — investors are investing all over the world. There are no regrets after coming to Tampa."
As of June, the company had 50 Tampa-based employees with another 40 on the way and plans to hire up to 150 more by the end of the year.
"We firmly believe there are exceptional technologists in the [Tampa Bay] community," said Bruce Zambrowicz, Drift's VP of global talent and acquisition. "And to build a high-performing, high-growth community, you have to have exceptional people. So, you put yourself in places you have the greatest opportunity to attract top talent and believe that exists in Tampa."
