San Francisco fintech company Plaid is opening an engineering office in Salt Lake City and hiring 50 engineers to staff it. Kira Booth, a University of Utah computer science grad and engineers, has been hired to lead the new operation.
Plaid has developed a technology platform that allows consumers to connect their bank accounts to digital financial services applications like Venmo, Acorns and Coinbase, according to a release from the company.
The Salt Lake City engineering hub will build integrations for more than 10,000 banks and financial institutions in the U.S. to enable people to connect to their accounts. The firm said that one in four people connect with U.S. bank accounts using Plaid applications.
“Plaid is adding the best and brightest talent to facilitate an ‘everybody wins’ financial system where technological innovation, protection of personal data and consumer choice and control are all possible,” said Booth. “As the Utah Computer Science Grant Act (HB227) heads to (Utah) Gov. Gary Herbert’s desk for his signature, Plaid is focused on laying the foundation for fintech for decades to come and is excited to lay down roots in a location that is equally as invested in the future of engineering and innovation.”
“We could not be more excited that Plaid has selected Salt Lake City as its new home for engineering,” said Theresa Foxley, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “Utah has a deep talent pool of software engineers and Plaid’s role in powering the fintech ecosystem provides a unique opportunity for Salt Lake City to become the next innovation hub defining the future of financial services.”
The expansion comes on the heels of a $250 million Series C funding round the company announced in December. Earlier this year, the company was named to the Forbes Fintech 50 list and received recognition as a Most Innovative Company by Fast Company.