Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens sat down with TechCrunch to help open our first TechCrunch Live event dedicated to the city and spoke with us about the rapidly growing tech landscape.

Atlanta is home to many buzzy industries, including fintech and SaaS, and is also the abode for many investors looking to back the startups in the city. Some well-known unicorns from the city include Calendy, FullStory, and Kabbage. Atlanta startups raised around $1.65 billion, according to Pitchbook, the second-highest amount of funding allocated to the city in recent years. With that, it makes sense why even the Atlanta Hawks and record label Quality Control have set up funds and investment portfolios.

Dickens was born and raised in Atlanta and had an extensive background in tech before becoming mayor. He said it has been “phenomenal to watch this city grow from a southern jewel with charm to now an international city, one of the epicenters of the tech ecosystem,” before giving a slight nod to all the companies who are moving in: Microsoft, Porsche, to name a few.

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