Bay Meadows

As the epicenter of business in the Bay Area spreads from the traditional hubs of the South Bay and San Francisco and into the center of the Peninsula, new companies are flocking to San Mateo. It wasn’t long ago that a quaint startup known as YouTube disrupted online video, from an office in San Mateo.

Look no further than San Mateo City Hall to see just how booming startup culture is in the city:

• In 2010, new business licenses were issued for 73 new tech companies, an increase of 217% from 2009.
• In 2013, 144 business licenses were issued for new tech companies, an increase of 64% from 2012.
• And in 2014,151 new companies applied.

While brand new companies are blooming as fast as spring poppies, one-time startups – such as Solar City and GoPro – have matured into seasoned brands. These firms have become veterans, many of them public companies that boast a huge employee base.

SolarCity
With the audacious goal of utterly transforming the way energy is delivered, SolarCity was recently named one of the world’s Top 10 Most Innovative companies by Fast Company. SolarCity kicked off 2015 with the big news that it has started a fund to finance more than $350M in residential solar projects with J.P. Morgan.

GoPro
After its wildly successful public debut last summer, GoPro is on a tear. In January, the maker of high quality light video cameras announced one of the most anticipated product launches in history: The GoPro Hero4 series. That announcement was followed up by GoPro’s founder Nick Woodman hitting #6 on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Top 50 List of charitable givers. Yes, that puts him up with the likes of Bill Gates. Together with his wife, the Woodmans donated just over $500 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Marketo
The enterprise software company that focuses on the marketing and sales sector is well beyond its startup phase, having gone public to great fervor in 2013. Now Marketo looks to join the ranks of Salesforce and Oracle, as it presents its signature industry conference. Watch for the upcoming Marketing Nation Summit, April 13-15 in San Francisco.

RingCentral
Founded in 2003, RingCentral has marched a steady drumbeat of consistent growth for its cloud-based phone systems. The latest partnership for RingCentral is none other than Google, where the company will bring its products to Google for Work, the search giant’s suite of business tools. The service will allow Google for Work users to make and receive phone calls, send text messages and faxes and even set up Web meetings without leaving Google’s Gmail environment.

Businesses expanding or relocating their offices within Silicon Valley, San Francisco or the general Bay Area can look no further. Bay Meadows has 5 brand new office buildings conveniently located on Caltrain; the first building, Station 4 will be ready for occupants by mid-2016 and will feature floor to ceiling glass, bike storage, expansive floorplates and locker room facilities. Station 4 is leasing now. All of the office buildings will have access to 18 acres of parks, a social street featuring coffee shops, restaurants, a biergardten and plenty of outdoor gathering spaces. The buildings are minutes from the Hillsdale Caltrain Station and proximal to SFO! It’s just 10 minutes to Palo Alto and SFO and 25 minutes to San Francisco!