Some predictions are merely predictions. Others are dead on.
And American Underground gets credit for the latter. Today, the operator of startup campuses (and owner of ExitEvent) reveals a plan to double the size of its space on Main Street in downtown Durham by January, making room for 50 additional companies and meeting a 2012 goal of housing 200 companies by 2015.
The expansion will happen on the third and fourth floors of the building owned by Self Help Credit Union and its rooftop, and will include 46 private offices for teams of 8-20, 12 new co-working desks, an Entrepreneurs Living Room with couches, TVs and a private bar, and a rooftop patio for outdoor seating and events. It will look out on the new 21c Museum Hotel, planned to open in spring 2015, and eventually, the 26-story tower planned kitty-corner to the building.
The announcement comes four years after American Underground was founded in the basement of the American Tobacco complex, a year after its Main Street campus (known as AU@Main) opened and six months since the Raleigh space was unveiled.
It’s evidence that—despite some damning reports about our region’s venture capital climate—companies are still growing and forming.
Chief Strategist Adam Klein says Underground companies created 122 jobs in the first half of 2014. They raised north of $2 million collectively. And just this month, 15 new companies signed on as tenants. Several have moved from larger tech hubs to the Triangle.
The full post can be read online.
Note: ExitEvent, American Underground and WRAL TechWire are owned by Capitol Broadcasting.
(C) ExitEvent
