Apartment search site to open Miami office, creating as many as 150 jobs: ‘An easy call’
Zumper, an apartment rental platform, is opening a Miami office, its CEO tweeted Friday, another sign of Miami’s burgeoning tech scene.
“Miami was an easy call,” CEO Anthemos Georgiades said, explaining that Miami Mayor Francis Suarez had successfully pitched the marriage of the city’s “brilliant and diverse“ local talent and the “seasoned operators who have recently moved here.“
“What startup can afford to miss out on that?” Georgiades said.
Georgiades also credited Saif Ishoof, Suarez’s senior adviser for innovation and technology, and Kevin Ruiz, the Downtown Development Authority’s senior manager for business development, with making opening up the Miami office “a breeze.” A DDA representative said Zumper, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, had not received any incentives or tax credits to make the move.
In a statement, Philippe Houdard, co-founder and CEO of the Pipeline co-working space group and the DDA’s enterprise committee chair, said Zumper hoped to hire as many as 150 workers.
“Every time Miami attracts a new-to-market company like Zumper, we’re sending a message to the industry and the world that this is a serious place to recruit talent, raise capital and grow a business,” Houdard said.
Zumper’s announcement came the same week that the Silicon Valley firm Founder’s Fund announced it would be signing a long-term lease in Wynwood as it launched a new e-commerce business.
In March, a division of the New York private equity firm Blackstone announced it had bought two office towers for $230 million in downtown Miami as part of its plan to open a tech office here.
Suarez has actively been courting tech professionals on social media.
Georgiades said in a follow-up email that the office would open as soon as the pandemic allows; the downtown area and Wynwood are the two leading candidates among possible locations.
Zumper “wants to position itself to attract the best talent in the U.S., and we simply have to be in Miami to do that,” Georgiades said.
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 5:31 PM.
