Lucid Software expansion means 339 new jobs for South Jordan

A Utah-based software company will add 339 jobs over the next five years in South Jordan. Lucid Software announced the $11 million expansion after being approved for a state incentive by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) last week.

A Utah-based software company will add 339 jobs over the next five years in South Jordan.

Lucid Software announced the $11 million expansion after being approved for a state incentive by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) last week.

Founded in Utah County in 2010 and now based in South Jordan, the company specializes in providing cloud-based visual productivity applications. It currently has 155 employees. In September, Lucid received a $36 million investment from growth equity firm Spectrum Equity.

“Things have been going well and — knock on wood — we’re hoping to continue great things and can’t be more excited to be staying here and developing more roots in the community,” Lucid co-founder and CEO Karl Sun told the GOED board.

The $726,269 state incentive is tied to the creation of 339 jobs over five years. The jobs are projected to pay a total of $91.2 million over five years, and new state tax revenues are estimated at more than $3.6 million during that period. The average wage is expected to pay 70 percent above the Salt Lake County average wage.

The expansion will take place at three floors of the new SoJo Station offices located on South Jordan Gateway. South Jordan City also has offered the company an incentive.

“When we talked with South Jordan, it was clear that this was a key to their development,” said Jerry Oldroyd, chairman of the GOED board’s incentives committee. “They want to keep this company here. This fits within their economic development plan, so it makes a lot of sense to support South Jordan with this type of [state] incentive.”

Among Lucid’s offerings are Lucidchart, a diagramming application, and Lucidpress, a design solution. The two are used in more than 175 countries by more than 9 million users.

Sun said the company began by offering software to visualize and diagram things, such as flow charts. Since then, it has expanded and now is “helping people take their ideas and complex relationships and they can map those out in a visual way so they can understand the information that they have,” he told the GOED board.

“I think there is tremendous opportunity there. I think with the way people are working today and [with] a lot more tools that you use in your everyday workplace, there’s a lot more information that you have. And sometimes the challenge isn’t having information; the challenge is how to make sense of all that information and tying it back into actually getting your work done, and that’s sort of the core idea that we’re trying to address and tackle.”

“GOED is committed to the success of homegrown companies,” Val Hale, GOED’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “Our expanding tech industry is supported by multiple companies like Lucid Software that are established and headquartered here. Utah’s ‘Silicon Slopes’ will continue to grow because of the state’s deep traditions of entrepreneurship and innovation.” 

“Lucid Software is a great example of a Utah company with homegrown talent succeeding and competing at the highest levels,” said Michael Flynn, chief marketing officer and acting chief of staff at the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “We congratulate them on their success and are pleased they have chosen Utah as the site for their long-term growth.”