Quizlet’s new Denver office could bring 300 jobs

Where will San Franciscobased Quizlet locate its second hub? Answer: Denver.

The San Francisco provider of popular online study tools, including digital flash cards, picked Denver over several other cities, including Vancouver, B.C., to house its growing workforce.

“We have been expanding aggressively and we just an nounced a milestone — 50 million monthly users,” said CEO Matthew Glotzbach. “We see Denver becoming another critical office. I can envision hundreds of people there over the next five years.”

Quizlet employs about 100 people in San Francisco and is looking to add up to 300 fulltime positions in Denver over the next eight years.

But it will start small initially, with about 25 hired by the end of next year at its new Denver office at 1801 Wewatta St., near Union Station. Arjita Ghosh, the company’s director of software engineering, will oversee the Denver office and hire additional tech talent.

The jobs will pay an average annual wage of $156,567, substantially above Denver’s average annual wage of $66,430. The Colorado Economic Development Commission approved up to $6.8 million in job growth incentive tax credits for the company in September for providing up to 300 highpaying jobs.

Glotzbach cited several reasons for why Denver won the new office, including the city’s ability to attract tech talent, an engaged economic development community, and a strong commitment to education.

“I recognize that the Bay Area hasn’t cornered the market on smart and talented people,” he said. “We want to be where the talent is and Denver is the next great place. Last but not least, it is easy to get to and from San Francisco.”

Quizlet provides a platform for study tools, generated by users, who can keep them private or make them public. About 300 million study guides are available.

Andrew Sutherland, 15 at the time, founded Quizlet in 2005 to help him study. The company grew slowly at first, but proved popular with teachers and students. Two out of three high school students and half of college students in the United States have used Quizlet, Glotzbach said.

Earlier this year, the company raised $20 million from venture capital investors, money that is funding an international expansion.

It has gone beyond flash cards to diagrams, charts and maps, and it is using increasingly sophisticated machine learning to predict where students will need the most help when studying a subject.