The San Francisco-based health technology company Collective Health has announced it will locate an office in Salt Lake City early next year, bringing between 50 and 100 jobs to Utah.
The privately held firm, which offers digital services to companies that operate self-funded employee health insurance, plans to open “a major operations hub” in Utah sometime in early 2019 and is scouting for office space, said Scott Murray, who will be the firm’s senior vice president over the Salt Lake City office.
The new site will be staffed by local hires and employees relocating from San Francisco, Murray said. “We’ll get the right people on board then scale it from there,” he said.
Founded in 2013, Collective Health reports substantial growth in its clientele as workforce health management companies continue to gain in popularity as an alternative to rising healthcare costs. The company’s platform lowers costs, in part, by directing employees toward less expensive services and treatment options.
The firm says it has raised nearly $230 million in venture capital and its list of more than 45 customers includes well-known firms such as Uber, eBay and Red Bull.
Murray said Collective Health was drawn to Utah’s capital city for its strong pool of tech-oriented workers and what he called the state’s prevailing “service-oriented” culture, which he said matched with the company’s own mission.
Murray, who in 2013 led a major expansion by e-commerce giant eBay into Draper, said Collective Health also hoped to benefit from proximity to the entrepreneurial culture on Utah’s Silicon Slopes, straddling the I-15 corridor linking Salt Lake and Utah counties.
“It’s a fantastic place for us to do business,” he said.
The financial technology sector continues to grow in Utah. Employment in “fin-tech,” as it’s called, grew by more than 20 percent in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area alone between 2011 and 2017, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — just short of three times the comparable growth rate for the sector nationally.
