Movin' on up: Meet 10 of the fastest-growing companies in Colorado tech

by April Bohnert
November 28, 2017

Last month, we celebrated another year of impressive tech workforce growth with the release of our annual list of the top 100 digital tech employers in the state. Now, we’re taking another look at the report to highlight 2017’s fastest climbers. These companies made the biggest jumps on our list from 2016 to 2017, adding nearly 800 local tech jobs between them.

 

Xero employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of Xero.

Number of Colorado employees: 133

Positions climbed: 10

Net employee increase: 35

Year in review: In March, the cloud accounting software company surpassed one million subscribers worldwide. In another testament to Xero’s rapid growth, just last month the company announced that it had claimed the top floor of the still-under-construction Circa office building on Platte Street in Denver. Xero moved its North American headquarters to Colorado’s Denver Tech Center less than a year ago and plans to double its workforce over the next few years. On pace to outgrow its current space next year, the company signed a 10-year lease for the 30,000-square-foot space.

 

Convercent employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of Convercent.

Number of Colorado employees: 107

Positions climbed: 10

Net employee increase: 38

Year in review: In February, the Denver-based SaaS company, which helps enterprise businesses manage ethics and compliance programs, closed a $10 million round of funding — its second round in only eight months. Since then, Convercent has reported record growth, expanding its customer base, its global workforce and the capabilities of its software platform.

 

Envysion employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of Envysion. 

Number of Colorado employees: 204

Positions climbed: 13

Net employee increase: 93

Year in review: Video-based business intelligence provider Envysion started off the year with two major leadership shakeups, promoting Calvin Quan from president to CEO and bringing on Kevin Walmsley as its new CFO. In the following months, the company announced partnerships with companies like El Pollo Loco and ZAK Family Foods (which operates KFC and Taco Bell), as well as key integrations with other business intelligence software providers like Delaget, Parapet Overseer and OneDataSource.

 

Evolve Vacation Rental Network employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of Evolve Vacation Rental Network.

Number of Colorado employees: 201

Positions climbed: 16

Net employee increase: 95

Year in review: After being forced to open a satellite office to handle its internal growth, Evolve announced plans to relocate its headquarters to downtown Denver. The new office more than doubled the previous square footage, making room for the more than 100 new employees slated to join the team in the next year. Soon after, the startup closed $11 million in funding to further advance the expansion and development of its online vacation rental platform.

 

Catalyst Repository Systems employee growth Colorado
Photo  via social media.

Number of Colorado employees: 127

Positions climbed: 20

Net employee increase: 51

Year in review: Catalyst designs, builds and hosts web-based document repositories for enterprise businesses. This year, the legaltech company launched its Insight Enterprise and Insight Legal Hold and Collections products. It also brought on a new head of product management, Daniel Au Yeung, and a business intelligence and reporting product manager, Jennifer Davies, in a continued effort to expand its enterprise offerings.

 

FareHarbor employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of FareHarbor.

Number of Colorado employees: 100

Positions climbed: 21

Net employee increase: 50

Year in review: Bootstrapped success story FareHarbor has more than doubled the size of its team in the last year — and plans to double it again in the next two. To accommodate its growing workforce, the startup announced it would quintuple the size of its Denver headquarters from 5,000 square feet to 25,000. Just last month, the company released a first-of-its-kind predictive pricing platform called Telescope, which uses machine learning and AI to tell tour operators when to increase or lower the price of an activity.

 

BombBomb employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of BombBomb.

Number of Colorado employees: 109

Positions climbed: 21

Net employee increase: 51

Year in review: Colorado Springs-based video messaging app BombBomb has recently focused on building out its mobile capabilities and further penetrating the real estate industry. Over the summer, the company announced partnerships and integrations with real estate software platforms Total Expert and dotloop, enabling mortgage brokers to send messages to clients directly through their CRM and transaction management platforms.

 

Peaksware employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of Peaksware.

Number of Colorado employees: 268

Positions climbed: 21

Net employee increase: 150

Year in review: Parent company to music and athletic training software like TrainingPeaks, MakeMusic and TrainHeroic, Peaksware continues to focus on the improvement and expansion of its products. This year the company substantially grew its Colorado presence, especially its engineering and development teams.

 

OpenTable employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of OpenTable.

Number of Colorado employees: 122

Positions climbed: 32 

Net employee increase: 70

Year in review: Though headquartered in San Francisco, OpenTable’s Denver office is busting at the seams. So much so that, last month, the company leased a 16,000-square-foot space on the 29th floor of the Wells Fargo Center downtown. Founded in 1998, the company continues to expand its restaurant booking platform into new markets, launching in Amsterdam in August.

 

Gusto employee growth Colorado
Photo courtesy of Gusto.

Number of Colorado employees: 207

Positions climbed: 53

Net employee increase: 153

Year in review: In the biggest climb of 2017, HR software provider Gusto nearly quadrupled the size of its Colorado team. The company set up shop in Denver in 2015 and expects to bring more than 1,000 jobs to the metro area over the next several years. Last month, Gusto hired former DocuSign CFO Mike Dinsdale to be the company’s first CFO — a move which proves the tech company is getting serious about an IPO.

 

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