Seattle e-commerce platform picks Lehi for major expansion

Brice Wallace 

A Seattle-based company offering an e-commerce platform for brands and retailers will expand in Lehi, bringing 152 new jobs over the next five years.

Fuelcomm Inc., doing business as Stackline, will use the Lehi site to grow its sales organization, customer success and technical support operations, according to Dave Helmreich, chief revenue officer. The company had also considered Austin, Texas; Denver; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Northern Virginia for the project.

“And as a result of that, Salt Lake City became, at every turn, our No. 1 choice, for a number of reasons,” Helmreich told the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) board, which approved a tax credit incentive for the project.

Utah’s advantages include access to talent, access to leading universities, the opportunity to build a college hiring program, “and, I think more importantly, attract new employees and families from out of the state to live in the state and live in the valley,” he said.

Steve Neeleman, chairman of the Go Utah incentives committee, said the project features “not lot of capital expenditure ($200,000), but the jobs that will be coming on are going to be significantly higher than the average county wage.”

Founded in 2014 and with operations worldwide, Stackline is a retail intelligence and software company offering technology to optimize e-commerce marketing performance for brands and retailers. It combines market intelligence, advertising automation, workflow management and operational analytics into a single platform. Over the past year, Stackline has raised $180 million in investments from Goldman Sachs Growth Equity and TA Associates. Its brand list includes Starbucks, Sony, General Mills, Mondelez and Levi’s.

“One of the challenges for our company has been trying to find not only the right people but the right location to significantly invest in our growth plans,” Helmreich said. “The past couple of years have been challenging for a number of us in the world, but what it has created is a unique opportunity for our business as we help brands scale in online and in e-commerce and overall in the commerce ecosystem.”

Stackline, he said, works with 70 of the top 100 brands “and will continue to grow that footprint.”

Marlin Eldred, Lehi’s economic development director, described Stackline as a growing tech company that will fit well in the city. “We are so excited to have Stackline located in Lehi,” Eldred told the Go Utah board. “We do consider ourselves kind of the heart of Silicon Slopes, and they’re just a wonderful addition to our community.”

The project incentive is a tax credit of up to $194,956 over five years. The project is projected to generate new state tax revenue of about $1.3 million and new overall wages are projected to be nearly $34.5 million during that time. The new jobs are expected to pay an average of $81,694.

“We’re excited to welcome Stackline to Lehi,” Dan Hemmert, Go Utah’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “Stackline’s platform provides valuable business insights for e-commerce everywhere. With year-after-year growth in e-commerce — and with Stackline’s unique and expanding tools — we anticipate successes in the future.”

“We’re excited to see Stackline select Lehi for its new operation,” said Theresa A. Foxley, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “It’s a perfect location because of the concentration of tech and talent to be found there. The company will find Silicon Slopes to be a productive location for an expansion.”

Go Utah does not provide upfront cash incentives. Each year that the company meets the obligations in its contract with the state, it will qualify to receive a portion of the new state taxes the company paid to the state.