By Nancy Dahlberg
You are likely to see a lot more Kaseya t-shirts around town.
Kaseya, a global tech company headquartered in Miami, is committing to creating 3,400 full-time jobs over the next three years in Miami-Dade County. Those jobs will pay an average annual salary of $107,000.
For that, the company will be awarded up to $4.56 million in performance-based economic incentives, the single largest incentive package from Miami-Dade County, and the largest tech job creation project the county has supported.
Kaseya, currently with over 4,000 employees worldwide in 15 offices serving 45,000 customers, is a global provider of IT management and security software for managed service providers, small to mid-size business and mid-market enterprises. It also reached “unicorn” status after a $500 million venture capital round in 2019.
The new jobs would more than quadruple Kasea’s Miami area workforce now. When Kaseya’s application for incentives was submitted, the company had 820 local employees. With some recent hiring, it now has between 900 and 1,000. With this commitment to 3,400 new direct jobs over the next three years, Kaseya’s current footprint in Miami-Dade County will grow past 4,200 jobs, making it one of the region’s largest employers.
CEO Fred Voccola says now is the time for Kaseya to “quadruple down” on Miami.
“It feels like a genuine win-win for everyone. We plan on being one of the five largest software companies on this planet by the end of the decade and we plan to do it from here in South Florida,” he said in an interview with Refresh Miami.
The No. 1 reason he cites for being so bullish: the talent.
“If you think about the DNA of Miami, we have a lot of first-generation Americans, a lot of people who fought for the right to be in this country. The work ethic is awesome, the sense of ownership, we have great grit,” said Voccola, a Miami resident who also is an alum of University of Miami. “It’s an awesome labor force.”
He also said the educational systems are focused on preparing students for the real world, not the fabricated world of academia. “It’s very inspiring for us to see that.”
Kaseya has been working with local universities and colleges for a couple of years and that will continue, said Xavier Gonzalez, Kaseya’s Executive Vice President of Marketing Communications.
Kaseya has been working with FIU on a course for its Remote IT and Security Management certification program. Close to 70 students have gone through it, and Kaseya hopes to expand the program at FIU and to other universities and potentially even to the general public in time, Gonzalez said. Kaseya has also worked with FIU over the years on its software sales curriculum: “We’ve hired a ton of talent from FIU and we will continue to do so.” With Miami Dade College, Kaseya is part of the Tech Talent Coalition that is part of Miami Tech Works, and has worked with MDC on curriculum development, including with their cybersecurity program, and hired graduates from there, too, Gonzalez said.
Kaseya will be hiring for nearly every function from software engineers, to security analysts, account managers, technical support, technical architects, marketing, accounting and finance, said Voccola.
He expects the vast majority of those 3,400 positions will be local talent – whether it is from South Florida universities seeking their first job or local people looking for higher level positions.
Through Kaseya’s Grow Your Own strategy, Voccola said, “we hire people into our company, whether they’re coming right out of university or trade school, or have years of experience. We give them opportunities to do things that they might not be qualified for on paper. We’re willing to take a chance on people who demonstrate the attributes that we believe make great employees and we invest a ton of money in developing and mentoring them.”
Kaseya, founded in 2000, has had a small presence in Miami since 2004 but began scaling up in 2018, when the company announced Miami would be its headquarters. Kaseya announced this latest news today from its newest offices in the Wells Fargo building in downtown Miami, where 101,871 square feet over multiple floors will be built out for Kaseya’s growth. These new offices join the 140,000+ square feet of office space Kaseya already occupies between three office buildings in Brickell: the 701, 777 and 800 buildings.
“With tech layoffs recently impacting thousands of people and their organizations across the U.S., our longstanding partnership with Kaseya to bolster job creation has never been more important,” said Miami-Dade Beacon Council President & CEO Rodrick T. Miller, in a statement. “Their growth during such a unique inflection point in the tech industry is a clear reflection of the economic health, favorable business climate and robust talent base Miami-Dade County offers to employers at any stage of their journey.”
Miami-Dade County will provide $4.25 million from the Relocation and Expansion Incentives Program (REIP), which provides financial incentives to growing and new-to-market ventures in Miami-Dade. Kaseya was the first company to apply for the new incentives program. Another $313,150 would come from the Targeted Incentives Job Fund, a program that offers cash incentives to existing businesses in select industries that create at least 10 above-average paying jobs.
In addition to the 3,400 new jobs paying an average salary of $107,000 – almost double the county’s median household income – Kaseya plans to make a $16.3 million capital investment into new office space in the Wells Fargo building, 333 SE 2nd Ave. Kaseya is eligible to receive up to $1,250 for every job created if it employs graduates from local colleges or people who were previously unemployed. The performance-based incentives will be awarded to the company over a 5-year period if it meets its job creation goals.
“Kaseya represents the type of business we want to grow in Miami-Dade,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, in a statement. “Since first establishing their headquarters here in 2018, they’ve been able to expand twice, using their success to advance our efforts in effectively growing our technology ecosystem. We are excited to see the positive impact their success will have as we continue to mobilize a future-ready economy.”
RELATED: Read more about Kaseya’s expansion plans for Miami-Dade and Florida.
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Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg and email her at [email protected]
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