Downtown Detroit is welcoming another tech firm now that e-Zest Solutions is opening its headquarters in the co-working space in the newly renovated Broderick Tower.
The 2-month-old software firm specializes in providing services in emerging tech sectors, such as cloud-computing and mobile. It is the U.S. operations of its 13-year-old India-based parent corporation. E-Zest currently has two people on its payroll in Detroit and expects to hire another 15 people in 2014. It is looking to hire another two positions (account managers) right now.
"We're looking for seasoned people in those two positions," says Shail Arora, president of the U.S. operations for
e-Zest Solutions.
Arora adds that e-Zest Solutions wanted to open a U.S. subsidiary so it could be closer to its North American customer base. It considered a number of different major cities to set up shop, including Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. The opportunity to get on the ground floor of up-and-coming entrepreneurial ecosystem as a key incentive in the decision to open in downtown Detroit.
"We like the growing tech community here," Arora says. "We thought that San Francisco would be too competitive for us. We also like the low cost of doing business here compared to San Francisco."
Grand Circus occupies one of the lower floors of the Broderick Tower, a loft-style office space overlooking Grand Circus Park and Woodward Avenue. It is adjacent to the M@dison Building, a hub for tech startups and creative firms, and a handful of commercial buildings fronting Woodward that
Bedrock Real Estate Services (Quicken Loans' real-estate development arm) is redeveloping into eclectic offices for startups like
Detroit Labs. That section of downtown is now bring branded as the M@dison Block.
"We wanted to be somewhere with a lot of energy," Arora says. "A place where there are a lot of startups."
Source: Shail Arora, president of the U.S. operations for e-Zest Solutions
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.