Miami startup Scrapblog is apparently saying bye-bye to Silicon Beach and moving its physical office to the San Francisco area, according to word on the street. Though the company has not yet made an official announcement, everybody and their grandmother is talking about the impending transition.
It's all over Twitter. And local geeks threw a farewell party for some of the California-bound staff, which yours truly attended.
Scrapblog is a superb, beautifully designed application for multimedia digital scrapbooking. Drag-and-drop makes it easy to create gorgeous scrapbooks in minutes using pictures and videos. Users can share their craft online or in print.
Miami resident Carlos Garcia founded the company in 2006. This past October, Garcia stepped aside from his role as president and CEO. California-based Jill Braff took the reins, though Garcia will be still be involved with partnerships and continue to be an active board member.
A handful of local geeks and social media specialists were part of Scrapblog from the get-go. Some moved to Miami to work for the company; others were already here. Sadly, some of them are packing up and leaving.
The company raised $4 million in January 2009 in a funding round led by Disney's Steamboat Ventures and Longworth Venture Partners, bringing its total funding to $7.5 million. Not bad for a South Florida-based company.
No official word on why the office is moving to the tech motherland; Garcia was unreachable by phone and email, and Graff's public relations representative declined to comment about the matter at the time of this post.
It probably doesn't hurt that the Silicon Valley Business Journal named Braff one of the 40 most influential people under 40 in Silicon Valley.
Still, no matter where it's located, Scrapblog rocks. We'll always know it got a jump-start in the Sunshine State, though it doesn't look good for the South Florida tech scene when a company of this caliber, employing great talent, seeks greener pastures. Yours truly wishes Scrapblog and its employees continued success.
