When Dave Clark and his wife Leigh Anne Clark began building Auger, their supply chain software startup, they set up shop in Bellevue, Washington, the Seattle suburb that had long been home to some of the tech industry’s most ambitious talent. But in late 2025, the company made a significant shift: Auger moved its official headquarters to Dallas, Texas. The company, founded only in 2024, has already raised $150 million, including a $50 million Series B led by Eclipse in July. Its software connects the fragmented systems companies use to run supply chains, weaving in artificial intelligence to automate operations, and its customer roster includes Meta, Fanatics, and Kimberly-Clark. Dave Clark, the former Amazon operations chief and one of the architects of Amazon’s massive delivery network, is now officially back in Dallas, and he brought the company’s corporate home with him. Yet he insists this is not an abandonment of the Pacific Northwest. Auger will maintain a significant engineering office in Bellevue, with about 115 employees there — engineers and supply chain data scientists — and Clark expects that number to grow by 20 to 30 percent over the next year or two. “Nothing’s changing there,” he said. The move is more personal and strategic than it is a rebuke of Seattle, but Clark’s words carry a warning for the region that helped launch his career.
The decision to relocate, Clark explained in an interview with GeekWire, was about talent and family, not taxes. He and Leigh Anne both grew up in the Southeast and had always planned to return to Texas. “I’d rather have a really hot month of August than a really gray month of February,” he said, capturing the mix of humor and genuine preference behind the choice. Dallas also offers a different kind of supply chain expertise than Seattle. In the Pacific Northwest, Clark noted, you run into software engineers at the coffee shop. In Dallas, you run into supply chain specialists — exactly the kind of people Auger needs at this stage. Texas is also more centrally located for the corporate customers the company serves across the country. The relocation was first reported by D CEO magazine in Dallas, which noted that Auger did not seek state or local incentives for the move. Clark confirmed that taxes weren’t a factor, adding that he couldn’t even quantify the tax advantages. Still, he acknowledged an affinity for the business climate in Texas. “There’s a lot I like about the way the state of Texas manages and works with business,” he said. But his praise for Texas came with a pointed message for Seattle: “Seattle should just be careful. It’s not preordained that they win these things. It’s not preordained that these big companies stay in town.”
Clark’s warning grew sharper when he addressed the broader sentiment he says he has observed since returning from Texas to launch Auger. He didn’t point to any single policy or issue, but he said he has sensed an “anti-business” mood in Washington state and Seattle that worries him. This year, Washington lawmakers approved a “millionaires tax,” a 9.9 percent levy on personal income above $1 million. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson added to the unease among some in tech when she responded to wealthy residents leaving the state with a dismissive “like, bye.” Clark was careful not to criticize any specific politician, but he made clear that the region’s rhetoric can undercut its strengths. The Pacific Northwest, he said, has enormous resources to compete globally and should be “a phenomenal draw to anybody and everybody coming in.” He emphasized that the region has “many, many strengths, and we should leverage them to the advantage of the community. And sometimes I think the rhetoric gets in the way of it.” For Clark, the issue is not that Seattle is losing every company or every founder, but that it cannot afford to take its status for granted. The very qualities that made the Pacific Northwest a hub for Amazon, Microsoft, and a generation of startups — access to engineering talent, a culture of innovation, natural beauty, and quality of life — are still there. But if business owners and investors feel unwelcome, he suggested, they will look elsewhere, and other regions are eager to receive them.
The new Dallas headquarters occupies part of the 15th floor of One Galleria Tower, a location Clark described as centrally positioned between neighborhoods north and south of the city, with a quick run to DFW International Airport. The office currently has about 15 people, most hired recently for sales, go-to-market, and supply chain roles. Many of those employees had been traveling to Bellevue until the new space opened. Clark expects to add another 20 to 30 people in Dallas by the middle of next year. In a telling detail, the Dallas office came furnished, just like the Bellevue office. In Bellevue, Auger subleased its space from Microsoft and bought the furniture for $1. In Dallas, the furniture cost $10. “It cost me 10 times more for the furniture in Dallas,” Clark joked. “I like nice things, cheap.” The cheap furniture and subleased spaces reflect the startup’s scrappy approach despite its large funding rounds. Auger has moved fast since its founding, attracting top-tier investors and major clients by promising to modernize supply chain software that has long been clunky and fragmented. The company’s work is especially relevant in an era when disruptions, from pandemics to geopolitical tensions, have made supply chain resilience a board-level priority. By integrating AI and connecting disparate systems, Auger aims to help companies predict problems, automate decisions, and move goods more efficiently.
Dave Clark’s backstory adds depth to the company’s mission. He spent 23 years at Amazon, rising to lead global operations and later the worldwide consumer business. He was one of the chief architects of the logistics network behind Amazon’s delivery operation, the massive system that now handles millions of packages a day. He left Amazon in 2022 to become CEO of Flexport, a freight startup, but departed the following year before starting Auger. Leigh Anne Clark is Auger’s president of fashion and beauty, leading the company’s work in an industry known for waste-prone and inefficient supply chains. The couple met in Kentucky in 2000 while Dave was at Amazon, and they have two sons, ages 14 and 11. Their return to Texas is a homecoming for the family, but it also puts Auger at odds with one of the Pacific Northwest’s most visible measures of startup success. The company had climbed quickly to No. 31 on the GeekWire 200, a ranking of the region’s top tech startups. Because the list is limited to companies based in the Pacific Northwest, Auger’s headquarters move threatens its standing. When informed of this predicament, Clark made his pitch to stay on the list. “We still have a lot of dev there,” he said of the Bellevue office. “I think you get grandfathered into the list in some way, right?” The comment was lighthearted, but it reflects a real tension: Auger is no longer a Seattle startup in the traditional sense, even as it remains a significant employer and tech presence in the region.
Meanwhile, Auger’s business continues to grow. Clark said the company signed two major contracts on Tuesday with customers he declined to name. The Bellevue office marked the occasion with a bell-ringing, a tradition common in sales cultures, and the two offices celebrated together over a video call. But with the new Dallas office becoming a central hub, a second bell is on order. “We’ll have dual bells that we’ll ring together,” Clark said. The image is fitting: Auger is now a company with two geographic hearts, one in Dallas where its CEO and headquarters reside, and one in Bellevue where much of its engineering and data science work lives. Clark will be back in Bellevue regularly, working alongside the team, as will Leigh Anne. The company is trying to bridge the two regions rather than choose one. But the move still carries symbolic weight. A startup founded by a former Amazon executive, backed by over a hundred million dollars, with major customers and rapid hiring, has decided that its future headquarters belongs in Texas. Clark’s public comments suggest he wants Seattle to learn something from that decision. The region can continue to produce world-class companies, but it must work to keep them, and to make them feel welcome. For now, Auger is a case study in how even successful startups can grow roots elsewhere while maintaining a presence in the Pacific Northwest. For Clark, it’s not about turning away from Seattle; it’s about planting the next chapter of his life and his company in a place that feels like home. And in that new home, the coffee shops are full of supply chain experts, the August heat is welcome, and the bell rings a little differently — but still, for now, in harmony with the one two thousand miles away in Bellevue.
