Vertafore needed to shake up its business.
New recruits and interns coming out of Georgia Tech weren’t impressed with the insurance software company’s nondescript suburban office in Conyers, said Neil Snowdon, Atlanta market chief for the Bothell, Wash.-based firm. Clients and guests often got lost during the drive from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
This week, Vertafore plans to open its new Atlanta hub for software engineers and staff at One Midtown Plaza, near the Woodruff Arts Center. The move from Conyers is part of plan to add “hundreds” of new jobs over the next several years. The company has about 130 workers now.
The shift in-town comes as several major technology firms have announced plans to relocate to new digs in-town near Georgia Tech, including financial technology companies Worldpay US and NCR.
Unlike many of them, however, Vertafore isn’t taking money from deal-closing funds from the state or local government to do it. It’s not that they didn’t ask about incentives, Snowdon said, but the company decided it could move forward without them.
The technology company makes software to help automate the paper-heavy insurance industry: from filing claims to managing agents’ businesses. As part of its growth plans, Vertafore will also invest about $35 million in new data center capacity in Georgia.
“Vertafore’s emphasis on technology innovation is exactly the type of experience we want to expose our students to in the form of internships and post-college careers,” Georgia Tech’s Director of Technology Policy Initiatives Tom McDermott said in a news release.
The company needs software designers and other highly skilled workers and wants to grow its partnership with Tech.
The Tech grads don’t want to stew in traffic out to the suburbs, Snowdon said. They want transit and a walkable community with places to live and bars and restaurants nearby to blow off steam after work, he said.
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