SoftBank Group Corp. is looking for a big block of expansion space in Miami in the latest sign that this city’s tech sector is flexing its muscles.
The Tokyo-based company, one of the world’s largest tech investors, is searching for as much as 100,000 square feet of space, according to executives in the real-estate and technology industries. A SoftBank spokeswoman confirmed that the company is looking for expansion space in Miami but declined to go into detail.
SoftBank, which currently occupies about 14,000 square feet in the city, said earlier this year that its funds would commit $100 million to startups in the region. That decision was based partly on the 40% growth in the region’s tech sector between 2012 and 2018, according to a LinkedIn post in February by Marcelo Claure, SoftBank’s chief operating officer and head of the firm’s SoftBank Latin America Fund.
He also cited the “global shift to flexible work” spaces which has accelerated during the pandemic. “People are increasingly choosing where they want to live rather than where they have to live,” Mr. Claure said.
In other tech news in Miami, developers Related Group and East End Capital are expected to disclose this week that their Wynwood Annex project has signed office leases with two venture-capital funds, Founders Fund and Atomic, as well as an e-commerce startup named OpenStore. The three companies leased a total of 22,000 square feet in the 65,000-square-foot development that was completed in 2019.
