Why startups are betting big on Texas

Everything is bigger in Texas, they say—including an economic boom there in recent years. Austin, in particular, consistently ranks among the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, and is vying to become one of the top startup hubs. Meanwhile, the state has successfully lured hundreds of companies to relocate to Texas in recent years. In 2024, Texas surpassed New York as the top employer of workers in the financial services industry, and it will up the ante with the opening of the Texas Stock Exchange later this year. This is the latest sign that the state, the eighth-largest economy in the world, is becoming a global financial and business powerhouse. “Especially in the last decade, we’ve really seen a maturity of the many ecosystems that we have in Texas,” Michael Sury, an associate professor of finance and director of the Center for Analytics at the University of Texas at Austin, said at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. A wave of transplants, initially drawn to Texas for v