Partly, an AI company focused on the automotive industry, is moving its headquarters from New Zealand to Austin.
The company plans to more than double its workforce over the next few years as it moves from temporary offices to downtown later in 2026. Levi Fawcett, the co-founder and CEO of Partly, told the Austin Business Journal that he and other company executives will be relocating to the city.
Partly has not yet signed a lease, but is on track to sign one for 20,000 to 30,000 square feet with an open-concept, according to the outlet. Partly employs a team in San Francisco, the AI capital of the nation, but Fawcett told the outlet that they wanted to move to Texas because of its proximity to “real world businesses” and “real world people.”
Partly just raised $50 million in Series B funding, and a significant chunk of that $50 million will be used to scale up their workforce in the U.S. The round was backed by billionaire Yuri Milner’s DST Global Partners investment firm.
Part of the reason Austin was selected was the sheer amount of available workforce. In comments to the Austin American-Statesman, Fawcett cited the graduates coming out of the University of Texas as well as the number of Bay Area transplants that the city has received in recent years.
However, recent trends have seen the massive influx of tech companies to Texas, a state with little regulation and low taxes, slowing down. The exception to this trend could be AI-based companies, bolstered by the retention of tech giants like Google and Nvidia.
According to JLL, at the beginning of the year, a third of tenants for pre-leased projects in Austin’s construction pipeline were tech companies. JLL also stated that at the beginning of the year, 1.7 million square feet of office space was either planned, or already under construction.
— Hunter Cooke
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