Newark, New Jersey, is expected to approve the big bag of cash, part of a $7 billion package the state is dangling in front of Amazon to capture it’s second headquarters, Bloomberg informs.
A trio of ordinances up for adoption at a city council meeting Wednesday would give the payroll-tax exemptions to any company that creates 30,000 jobs and invests $3 billion in New Jersey’s largest city over the next 20 years.
The inducements would be applicable to other companies should Amazon decide to build its $5 billion campus elsewhere, said Aisha Glover, president of the Newark Community Economic Development Corp., which oversees business opportunities.
The Seattle-based e-commerce company last year announced plans to seek the second headquarters to accommodate as many as 50,000 employees over the next 18 years, triggering the competition in an initial field of 238 locations. The contest has been so intense that St. Louis was eliminated despite a $7.1 billion proposal, Bloomberg adds.
Newark can’t boast the credentials of a New York or an L.A., established homes of numerous large and well-known corporations, but it has four superhighways that run through it or near it, a big port, an international airport and two major commuter rail stations that are connected to New York City.
Of the finalists, Newark and Montgomery County, Maryland, with a package of as much as $6.5 billion, stand out with publicly disclosed incentives, and such large offers are likely to step up the bidding and risk removing any economic gains the cities might have reaped.
Meanwhile, Amazon keeps disrupting industry sectors as diverse and huge as health insurance and shipping, while spinning up new opportunities and even new sectors for other companies – the latest of which is a third-party automation service that helps brands market their products across the extraordinarily dynamic, bewilderingly complex advertising landscape that is Amazon itself.
Seattle-based Downstream, one of the first companies in the emerging sector, announced a $1.925 million seed-funding round this morning, Forbes writes.
CEO and co-founder Connor Folley said the company already has stacked up hundreds of clients and is cash-flow positive since its launch last October. The modest fund raise will allow the company to hire additional engineers to further beef up its product as a fast-growing and promising new sector expands.
“Amazon’s advertising has really been exploding, but there’s a complete lack of tools to help. Amazon is a complete black box for most brands. You can’t take an algorithm out to lunch,” Folley said.
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