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Star Chart Shows Seattle’s Tech Universe Extends Beyond Amazon and Microsoft

One of Seattle’s leading venture firms aims to demonstrate the region’s prowess by plotting the region’s tech constellations.

Madrona Venture Group

Asked to map Seattle’s tech scene, many in Silicon Valley would plot just two points — Amazon in the city itself and Microsoft in Redmond to the east.

But a more accurate cartography would show other big names — T-Mobile, RealNetworks and Expedia — along with hundreds of startups. Many other big-name tech firms, such as eBay, Google and Facebook, have set up operations in Seattle in order to nab key talent.

To drive home the point, Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group and the Washington Technology Industry Association produced a Cosmo-worthy star-chart graphic showing the many companies based in Seattle and their ties to one another and the bigger outfits.

Seattle’s tech scene continues to thrive, says Tom Alberg, managing director at Madrona and an early Amazon investor. The graphic includes more than 600 tech firms and connects them to current tech companies and the University of Washington as well as the region’s original tech stars — McCaw Cellular and Boeing.

“Anchor tenants such as Microsoft and Amazon are fueling not only the economy, but also bringing innovative people to our region who are contributing to the creation of hundreds of technology startup companies,” Alberg said. “This map shows over 600 startups in the greater Seattle area and their links to numerous existing companies and institutions, which are the sources of the people who launched these startups.”

The Washington Technology Industry Association said it found that the Seattle region has more software developers than any other metro area, including San Francisco (the total is 90,000). It also says Amazon is the fastest-growing enterprise company ever, even though that side of things is overshadowed by its retail operation.

The full chart can be seen by clicking on the above graphic, and is also available on from Madrona’s website.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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