Another Bay Area company just bought into the Colorado dream.
Smart-office startup Envoy announced Monday that Denver will serve as its newest talent hub amid rising demand for its workplace management systems. Earlier this year, the startup expanded its offices in London and India. Now, it’s investing in its domestic operations — Envoy’s Colorado office represents its third national hub, alongside Kansas City, Missouri, and its headquarters in San Francisco. Philip Lacor, chief revenue officer, said Envoy reviewed at least 20 cities before deciding on Denver.
“We went through a very extensive process to think about where our next U.S. hub would be,” Lacor told Built In. “The markets we are in are very fast-paced and very dynamic.”
Founded in 2013, Envoy offers a workplace management system that customers use to digitize visitor registration desks, book conference rooms, manage package deliveries and more. In May, the startup unveiled Envoy Protect, a return-to-work platform that has since helped more than 1.3 million offices open more safely during the pandemic.
“We’ve seen lots of new customers — and lots of existing customers, even in global rollouts — using it,” Lacor said.
To handle demand, Envoy needed to tap additional talent. When thinking of where to expand next, Lacor said company officials started by asking Envoy’s backers to recommend the best hiring hubs — the startup has raised a total of $59.2 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Menlo Ventures. The company also grilled real estate experts about the characteristics of each city’s population, asking about its size, growth rate, education levels and more. Envoy officials also looked at the available talent density in each market, as well as the existing tech ecosystem.
“We were like, ‘Is there enough supply of talent, and what is the competition in these markets?’” Lacor said, adding that the company identified 260 similar SaaS companies in Denver.
But the city’s convenient time zone, airport connectivity and laidback lifestyle made Denver an easy choice, Lacor said. He mentioned that a handful of Envoy’s San Francisco-based employees have since asked to relocate.
“Denver is one of the ones where people like to move for quality of life, and that’s important,” Lacor said, adding that the company adjusts salaries based on the cost of living in a given location.
The 160-person company has grown its Denver headcount to 15 people, and it aims to double the size of the local team by the end of the year as it hires for account executives, customer success managers, business development representatives and more. Lacor said Envoy is still debating whether it needs a physical office space — or co-working space — in Denver.
And Envoy isn’t the only Bay Area startup to recently invest in Colorado.
In October, proptech startup Snapdocs announced it was mulling moving its headquarters to Denver after committing to a major local hiring spree; in August, Palantir Technologies announced it was moving its headquarters to Denver; and, during the next eight years, fintech startup Marqueta plans to establish a second headquarters in the city.
“We wanted to have access to a broad and diverse talent pool. That’s the reason we have offices right now in San Francisco and Kansas City,” Lacor said. “We’ve dealt with continued growth, and we wanted to tap into an extra talent pool. That’s why we chose Denver as our next hub.”
