Emeryville, California - Economy

Economy

Emeryville has a reputation for being business friendly compared to its neighbors.

Companies based in Emeryville include:

• AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah, an auto club
• Alibris Inc., an online supplier and retailer of used and rare books founded in 1997 by Martin Manley and Richard Weatherford.
• Alternative Tentacles Records, a long-running independent record label, specializing in punk and alternative music, founded and run by former Dead Kennedys singer/songwriter Jello Biafra. Home to the music of Biafra, Wesley Willis, The Dicks, D.O.A., and many other acts. Although founded in San Francisco (where a post office box mailing address is maintained), the label's actual office and warehouse space are in Emeryville.
• Art.com, an Internet company selling art and framing products & services.
• Aspera, a networking software company.
• Bayer, formerly Novartis Biopharma division (Chiron Corporation prior to April 2006): a global biotech leader and research company and manufacturer of biopharmaceuticals.
• Berkeley Research Group, LLC (BRG), a global expert services and consulting firm co-founded by David Teece.
• Big City Chefs, a nationwide provider of private chef services featured in its own Food Network hit television series, Private Chefs of Beverly Hills.
• BigFix (IBM), an enterprise software company which provides an endpoint management services, including asset inventory/discovery, security vulnerability detection and remediation, software distribution, IT compliance reporting, patch management, software license management, security policy enforcement, and endpoint device power consumption management.
• Bionovo, a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of drugs to treat cancer and women's health issues such as hot flashes and vaginal atrophy associated with menopause.
• Cartridge World, ink-jet refill retailer and franchiser.
• Cetus Corporation, (acquired by Chiron in 1991) one of the first biotechnology companies. Working from the old Shell Development buildings on Horton Street, they produced two significant pharmaceuticals, Betaseron and Proleukin. They also developed the PCR process, which won a Nobel Prize for its inventor in 1993.
• Clif Bar, a natural foods maker
• Electronic Arts, the world's largest video game maker has Will Wright's Spore development team Maxis based here.
• Gracenote, a company that maintains and licenses an Internet-accessible database containing information about the contents of audio compact discs (acquired by Sony Corporation of America in 2008 for $256 million).
• Innovative Interfaces, Inc, a leading supplier of integrated library system software.
• INSIGHT (The Institute for the Study of Graphical Heritage Techniques), an archaeology non-profit organization that releases open source data and software.
• Jamba Juice a restaurant retailer
• Kodak Gallery (formerly Ofoto.com), an Internet digital photo service whose product offerings include photo prints and gifts.
• Leapfrog, an educational toy company best known for its LeapPad, a paper-based electronic reading toy.
• Mason Investigative Group, the well-known investigative services outfit has been based in Emeryville since its inception.
• Nextsport, an action sports company most recognized for the Fuzion scooter.
• Lithium Technologies, a social customer relationship management (SCRM) company.
• Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics (Chiron Corporation prior to Apr 2006), a global biotech leader and research company and, vaccines and blood testing kits, vaccines against meningitis, flu and rabies, Immunodiagnostics testing kits for hepatitis and HIV and NAT testing kits for West Nile virus, hepatitis and HIV.
• Peet's Coffee & Tea, specialty coffee roaster and retailer.
• Pixar Animation Studios, a major animation and computer graphics firm known for award-winning shorts, and feature films including Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and WALL-E and Up. In their movie The Incredibles, a map is shown on the dashboard of the hero's car, easily recognizable as part of Emeryville near Pixar's headquarters. Also, a "Welcome to Emeryville" sign is briefly seen in their 2006 film Cars. Pixar was bought by The Walt Disney Company in 2006 for $7.4 billion.
• Quantitative Medical Systems, Inc., a software company providing billing and clinical systems for the dialysis industry.
• RelayHealth, A software company specializing in secure physician-patient communication, electronic health records, and health information exchanges.
• SeeqPod, a search and recommendation web site.
• SheetMusicPlus.com, an online print music retailer.
• SomaTone Productions, audio production for computer and video games.
• Sendmail Inc., a software and services company that was founded by Eric Allman, the creator of sendmail.
• Wham-O Toys, a toy company and an inventor's workshop, home of the original frisbee, hacky sack and hula hoop.
• ZipRealty, an internet-based realty company.