How did Atlanta become a top breeding ground for billion-dollar startups in the Southeast?
Over the past five years, the Southeastern region, led by Atlanta, has gone from being “one of the best kept secrets” in tech, to a vibrant ecosystem teeming with a herd of the billion dollar tech businesses that are referred to in the investment world as “unicorns” (thanks to their supposed rarity).
In those five years venture capital investments surged to $2.1 billion in the region, with $1 billion invested in the last year alone, according to Lisa Calhoun, a partner with the Atlanta based investment firm, Valor Ventures.
Analysts cheered the Gelsinger move. C.J. Muse, an analyst at Evercore ISI said:
With the change in leadership (Gelsigner), the near-term partnering with TSMC at 7/5/3nm, and the longer-term benefit of the US government focused on keeping Intel as a leading edge manufacturer in the U.S, it is hard not to think that investors will now change their views on Intel - moving from glass half empty to now half full. We don t underestimate the meaningful challenges ahead. But with a true operator and technologist now at the helm of Intel (formerly COO EMC and CTO Intel), the odds of success are now greatly improved.