This ‘hidden gem’ of a city wants the tech world to take notice
Although it’s home to 11 Fortune 1,000 companies, Richmond, Va., has a ‘modesty problem’
A hidden gem in the Mid-Atlantic region has plenty to brag about, if it could only muster a bit of braggadocio.
Although it’s home to 11 Fortune 1,000 companies, including CarMax Inc. KMX, -1.49%, Arko Corp. ARKO, -0.69%, Markel Group Inc. MKL, -0.78% and Dominion Energy Inc. D, -0.51%, Richmond, Va., has a “modesty problem,” according to Garret Westlake, associate provost at Virginia Commonwealth University’s da Vinci Center, an innovation center for higher education located in the heart of the city.
Richmond needs to balance its penchant for humility with the will to tout its achievements, he said, adding that “you need a certain amount of bravado” to successfully compete with similar-sized cities.
While the Virginia state capital is not big enough to compete in every kind of market, it still has “an opportunity for things like [education technology] and healthcare,” Westlake said. That’s why he and others consider Richmond a rising tech hub that can compete with cities like Raleigh, N.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Charleston, S.C.; Columbus, Ohio; and Pittsburgh.
The city has a number of big projects coming in the next several years: a 7,500-seat amphitheater in 2025, a 26-story headquarters for CoStar Group Inc. CSGP, -1.75% in 2026 and a $1 billion manufacturing plant for Lego Group in 2027.
And in October, the Biden administration designated the Richmond region as an advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing tech hub.
“We’re trying to position Richmond as the leading edge of artificial intelligence and machine learning, so that if you’re a company that is in that space, this is a good place to find talent and to headquarter here,” said Nick Serfass, CEO of the Richmond Technology Council, a 200-member association of companies including Bank of America Corp. BAC, -1.07% and CarMax.
“The ecosystem is super tight-knit,” said Lloyd Turner, the director of innovation and design at VCU’s da Vinci Center. “Richmond is small enough so folks know each other, which leads to a healthy overall ecosystem.”
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