A company that arrived in Vancouver six years ago as a small startup with an obscure product is making a big imprint on the city’s downtown with its startling growth.
DiscoverOrg, which builds and maintains databases of marketing intelligence aimed at IT vendors and staffing agencies, said Thursday that it intends to more than double its staff size within six months, adding 150 new employees to its downtown headquarters in the 805 Broadway building. The company only recently relocated its 140 employees, including 100 research analysts, to the downtown office from east Vancouver to accommodate its growth.
The planned expansion puts the company well ahead of the estimate of 170 employees at year’s end that co-founder and CEO Henry Schuck offered just three months ago.
“There is pent-up demand in the marketplace for the data sets that we build,” Schuck said. “Our new thinking is that we have the infrastructure, the people and the processes to build more than one data set at time. There’s not an impetus to grow slowly any more.”
DiscoverOrg already offers data on the IT, marketing and finance departments of more than 20,000 companies in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
The company says its data, verified through personal contacts, is updated every 90 days and is guaranteed to be at least 95 percent accurate.
The company’s ability to grow more quickly is due in part to an infusion of capital it received last year from TA Associates, a prominent Boston-based private equity firm. The amount of that investment was not disclosed. In terms of moving the company into a more rapid growth model, TA Associates “sort of enlightened our thinking,” Schuck said.
Chad Eiken, Vancouver’s community and economic development director, said the company’s rapid growth “is great news for city and also for downtown.”
“Its really a confirmation of what we’ve been hearing nationwide about a trend of tech companies locating in downtowns and urban centers and then expanding,” he said. “We couldn’t be more excited for them.”
The new staff will meet growing demand for those existing data sets and to broaden the depth of information about contacts within companies that are valuable to vendors and others who do business with those companies. DiscoverOrg also provides detailed organizational charts of companies and alerts its customers to important company news and announcements.
The expansion will create a wide range of jobs including researchers, managers, and sales and marketing personnel, Schuck said. Salaries will range from about $30,000 to about $75,000 annually, he said.
DiscoverOrg arrived in Vancouver in 2009 from Columbus, Ohio, as a small startup. It has enjoyed steady, sometimes dramatic growth since then. This spring it relocated from the EastRidge Business Park to the 805 Broadway building, where it is leasing space on the ninth floor and part of the eighth floor. It has room for about 100 more employees without having to add additional leased space, Schuck said.
Schuck said in January that the company wanted to consolidate from a number of scattered small offices in east Vancouver and was looking for a more urban environment that would be attractive to employees and a draw for metro area residents who live in Oregon.
Max Ault, business development manager for the Columbia River Economic Development Council, said the company’s expected growth is a boost for the Clark County economy.
“The potential hiring of 150 additional employees by DiscoverOrg would not only add to the growing critical mass of Vancouver’s downtown by creating increased professional and community vibrancy, but would be a key employment driver within our broader community,” Ault said.
