For this technology firm, move to Carmel, Ind., computes
A fast-growing software company is raising millions of dollars from East Coast investors and bringing hundreds of jobs to Central Indiana.
Interactions Corp., a provider of human-guided, automated call center services for corporations, plans to hire nearly 150 people by the end of 2008. The company is based in Carmel, at Clay Terrace mall.
Interactions Corp., which gradually has been moving its headquarters from New Jersey to Carmel in recent months, made the move here official with Wednesday's announcement.
Interactions said it insisted on moving to the Midwest when it raised millions from venture capitalists.
That cuts against the more familiar story in Indiana: companies leaving the area to find money in other parts of the country.
The company employs 95 people now, 57 of them in Carmel. It expects to employ as many as 240 in Indiana by the end of 2008. Those jobs will pay more than $30 an hour, on average, or more than $63,000 a year.
The company, which has taken up residence in Clay Terrace, has developed a software system that provides automated customer service for its clients. Interactions employs call center staff to verify the intent of a customer's request so its computer system can respond accurately and quickly.
In recent years, several promising Hoosier companies moved out of state to find investors. But Interactions' decision to bring its high-paying jobs here could mark a shift in fortunes for the state's efforts to keep and attract fast- growing software firms.
"We've reached a tipping point in the software industry (in the Indianapolis area)," said Bob Compton, a Tennessee-based investor who backs several of Indianapolis' most successful software firms.
Compton's investments include ExactTarget, which recently ranked No. 56 on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the nation, as well as Aprimo, a maker of marketing software.
Compton also has been a strong contributor to Gov. Mitch Daniels, who joined Interactions officials at a news conference Wednesday.
Compton was an early investor in Interactive Intelligence, which has broken into profitability and has seen its stock soar this year.
Those three Indianapolis companies, along with Autobase, have all received major investments from East Coast venture capitalists. So it's not so surprising, Compton said, to see East Coast investors go along with Interactions' plan to move here.
"The venture industry is a very small community," Compton said. "And (when) you see a pattern like that in Indianapolis, it catches your eye."
One of Interactions' investors, Sigma Partners of Boston, is also a major investor in Aprimo. Its managing director, Bob Davoli, is one of the nation's best-known venture capitalists.
Last year, a local startup called Xsprada moved to Austin, Texas, after it couldn't find money here. Likewise, Carmel-based NoInk Communications sold out to a California competitor after it couldn't find venture capital. In 2003, West Lafayette-based Renal Solutions moved to Pittsburgh to be near its main venture capitalist.
Indiana did win a victory last year when a small Chicago-based software firm, Vasc-Alert, moved to West Lafayette after receiving an infusion from investors.
Interactions' Chief Executive Michael Cloran declined to say how much the company has raised in venture capital. But he said Sigma Partners and Updata Partners of New Jersey bought into his case that the Midwest would lower the company's costs and give officers a better place to raise families.
"By far, it was where to raise a family and where to raise a business," said Cloran, who grew up near Cincinnati and went to college at Indiana University.
Interactions chose Carmel after also considering the Chicago and Cincinnati areas.