Five Reno startups were recognized by the city and state officials this month for raising funding and creating high-paying jobs.

From a company that caters to endurance athletes to one that specializes in the Internet of Things, Governor Brian Sandoval and Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve paid them a special recognition. Breadware, the Sufferfest, Talage, MyVR and Bombora have brought 125 new tech jobs to the area and raised more than $10 million in funding. Even better, the average annual wage for those jobs is $77,000.

“We’re at the brink of a fourth industrial revolution, a new economy,” Sandoval said. “This community… has to be at the foundation and at the beginning of this fourth industrial revolution so we can position this state as the new

Companies looking to relocate are flocking to Northern Nevada - why?

The Reno-Sparks region has become a distribution mecca, due mostly in part to its proximity to I-80. Nancy McCormick is the vice president of business retention, expansion and workforce for the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada (EDAWN) and they use I-80 as a selling point. According to data from EDAWN, the area has one-day truck service to the Bay Area, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland and Boise. Add an extra 24-hours and two-day service is available to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.

"We have immediate access to port of entry in California and logistically can reach locations in 11 western states within 24 - 48 hours," said McCormick. "It's

Northern Nevada has earned big headlines in the news as a major tech hub, but is it really the next Silicon Valley?

Image courtesy of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce

Particularly since Tesla began construction on its Gigafactory, Reno has had national headlines pegging it as the newest Silicon Valley. Lately, they’ve sounded something like this:

“For decades, the city was a gambling mecca. But when casinos fell on hard times, Reno struggled. The city has reinvented itself as a tech hub, thanks to recent arrivals like Tesla.”

That clip came from CBS This Morning as they touched on Reno’s economic improvements. And they are right – many big names in tech have moved, or expanded to northern Nevada in recent time including Apple, Switch

At the start of September, Amazon.com announced their plan to build a secondary North American headquarters.

The announcement has opened up a bidding war to be a second home for the online retailer.

“We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, in a press release issued by the company. “Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in up-front and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We’re excited to find a second home.”

The state of Nevada has offered subsides, tax breaks and other incentives to land corporate footprints for Apple, Tesla, Panasonic, Switch and Google, along with others. The Amazon press release included a bulleted list of conditions for its new

Apple has announced that they will double the size of their already massive data center just east of Reno.

Apple executive Mike Foulkes announced last week that the tech giant will invest an additional $1 billion in expanding its data center at the Reno Technology Park. The park sits in the Truckee River canyon to the easy of Sparks and is host to Apple’s existing data center along with cloud services company Rackspace.

“We’re excited to announce Apple will be increasing our investment by an additional $1 billion,” Foulkes said, stressing that it will bring “hundreds of jobs in operations and construction.”

Northern Nevada is becoming a familiar home to the booming data storage industry. Demands for iCloud storage has been on the rise and

Google, Inc. has purchased 1,210 acres of land at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.  

Per the documents filed last week in Storey County, the Silicon Valley tech giant spent nearly $29.1 million on the land in the same industrial park as Tesla. Governor Sandoval welcomed the high-profile company’s expansion into the state.

“Google is an internationally recognized and respected brand and one of the premier technology companies on the planet,” Sandoval said. “As with all businesses, the state stands ready as a willing and friendly partner in the development of this site.”

Several parcels of vacant land at the TRIC, just east of Reno, were snatched up by Google. One parcel is a whopping 662 acres and the other its slightly smaller