Cal.-based healthcare tech firm bringing 500 new jobs to Utah

By Brice Wallace 

A healthcare technology company will create 500 jobs in Salt Lake County during the next few years.

Castlight Health Inc. made the announcement last week after being approved for a $920,387 tax credit incentive by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board, meeting in Park City. The incentive is tied to 235 jobs created over the next five years that will pay an average of $95,000.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

Founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco, publicly traded Castlight also has locations in Sunnyvale, California, and Charlotte, North Carolina. It offers a technology platform to large, self-insured employers, allowing those companies to offer subscriptions to their employees, who can use the technology to comparison-shop for healthcare services by using price tools to see the costs of surgeries and other medical services offered by different providers. The company has more than 260 customer companies and 20 million users.

Castlight stock is traded in the New York Stock Exchange. For the second quarter ended June 30, Castlight reported a net loss of $8.4 million, or 6 cents per share, on revenues of $35.9 million.

Castlight has yet to select a site in Salt Lake County. It considered several other locations in California and elsewhere before selecting Utah for the project that will open in 2020.

“It’s a super-exciting company [and] a super-exciting project for us in corporate recruitment,” Thomas Wadsworth, GOED associate managing director, told the board.

Wadsworth noted the company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility and diversity and inclusion initiatives and said Castlight will boost a pair of the state’s industry clusters.

“As we’ve talked about our six strategic clusters in the state, this is a cross-over between two industries that we’re really competitive in —healthcare and also technology — and we’ve also seen this burgeoning health tech ecosystem here, so this will be added to that,” he said.

A company representative told the board that the Castlight was attracted to Utah because of the state’s quality of life and its skilled workforce.

“We are excited to open Castlight’s ‘Center of Excellence’ in Utah,” Siobhan Nolan Mangini, president and chief financial officer of Castlight, said in a prepared statement. “The Salt Lake City area provides access to a talented workforce that will enable us to deliver innovative healthcare technology solutions to our customers. We want to thank the Governor’s Office of Economic Development for helping us find the right home for Castlight’s newest location.”

The $3.1 million project is expected to result in new wages of nearly $115.9 million over five years and new state tax revenue of $4.6 million during that period. The incentivized jobs include those focused on sales, marketing, business development, IT services and quality assurance, among others. The non-incentivized jobs will include those in call center activities.

“Castlight Health will be a great addition to Utah’s growing healthcare and technology industry sectors,” said Val Hale, GOED executive director. “Healthcare is important to Utahns, and we’re glad Castlight chose Utah.”{/mprestriction}