Satyen Patel is the CEO of Prescient Co.
An Indian American-owned construction software company based in Colorado, Prescient Co., plans to hire 205 people in Alamance County for the company’s planned East Coast headquarters.
Prescient Co., which designs and installs building sections, stands to receive $2 million in North Carolina Job Development Investment Grants over 12 years if it meets its hiring goals and invests $18.8 million in the planned facility, reported The News & Observer.
The Economic Investment Committee of the N.C. Department of Commerce unanimously approved the financial incentives on Monday. The deal was announced in Mebane on Monday morning by company executives, local officials and Gov. Pat McCrory.
“It’s demand for our product that’s bringing us to the East Coast,” Prescient CEO Satyen Patel said in a phone interview. “This allows us to be closer to our customers.”
Prescient intends to hire process engineers, architects, welders, technicians, assemblers and equipment operators. Salaries will vary by position, but the average annual compensation at the planned facility will be $46,544. Alamance County’s average wage is currently $36,346 per year.
Prescient will build its facility in the North Carolina Commerce Park, a 1,200-acre business property developed by Alamance County and the towns of Graham and Mebane, the report said.
Prescient also considered sites in South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia for its East Coast expansion, said Gregg Pacchiana, Prescient’s vice president and general manager for East Coast operations, who is currently the company’s sole North Carolina employee based in Durham.
Prescient was founded in 2012 and has 270 employees. About 70 of them are based in Krakow, Poland, the company’s software development center.
Privately held Prescient is backed by about $45 million in investment capital, Patel said. The company increased its revenue eightfold to $40 million last year and expects to reap $52 million in sales this year and $127 million in 2017, he said.
Prescient is planning to develop an operations center in Texas that will be identical to the one planned in North Carolina, Patel said.
Prescient designs, manufactures and installs prefabricated posts, panels and trusses made from light gauge steel. The materials are used to build apartments, hotels and other buildings.
“We assemble them on site to make a final building,” Patel said. “Our own software drives the manufacturing process.”
The company’s projects include 45 Asheland apartments in Asheville and Pier 33 apartments in Wilmington, with several others under development, Patel said, reported the News & Observer.
Prescient produced 1.2 million square feet of construction in 2015, three times as much as the company built in 2014. This year Prescient expects to build 2 million square feet, Patel said.