Virginia teems with tech talent and San Francisco-based tech startup Shift is going to invest $20 million to take advantage of it. The car sales platform is planning to hire about 100 engineers and other technicians at its new space in the 1776 tech incubator's Crystal City campus.
"We're going to hire an engineering team in the Arlington area that will be the internal part of the app," said Toby Russell, the head of business and product at Shift. "We're proving you don't have to move to Silicon Valley for a great consumer tech job."
Shift acts as a facilitator for buying and selling cars. It doesn't buy the cars itself, instead its more of a concierge, testing and tuning the car at or near cost, handling all the paperwork and arranging pick-ups from sellers and on-demand test drives for buyers. Those who sell their cars on Shift are given a minimum sale price with any additional profit split between the seller and Shift. It also can act as an agent for a buyer to help him or her find the kind of car they are looking for.
"It's an Airbnb for selling cars," Russell said. "Because we're peer-to-peer we can help make sure car owners get better value and that buyers can trust they are getting a car in good condition."
Shift closed a $50 million funding round led by Goldman Sachs last September, so it certainly has the cash on-hand to make the expansion happen, Russell explained. And Virginia offers some attractive benefits for a tech company, encouraged by Governor Terry McAuliffe. The state will offer $1,000 in training for each hire made as part of McAuliffe's initiatives to boost the tech sector in Virginia.
Operating in Virginia is also something of an indirect homecoming for the company. CEO and co-founder George Arison also founded Taxi Magic several years ago in Virginia. That company later became Curb and was acquired by VeriFone last year. His move to Silicon Valley was partly because of a lack of consumer technology startup culture in the area, something that has changed immensely since then, Russel said.
"We're going to be starting an exciting core engineering initiative right here," Russell said. "The consumer tech ecosystem here has hit a critical mass that didn't used to exist. That's what makes this all work."
