CEO: Staying in Indiana key for growing data science company
ZIONSVILLE, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) — The chief executive officer of Zionsville-based Vertex Intelligence Systems says the decision to expand in Boone County is part of a commitment to staying and growing in Indiana. The data science company this week announced plans to invest $270,000 to grow its operations at the zWORKS coworking space and add 37 jobs by the end of 2024. Tyler Foxworthy credits the tech community in the Indianapolis area with helping the company grow.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Foxworthy said while his team is currently working from home, zWORKS will be an ideal location.
“Once things go back to normal, I think zWORKS will be a natural fit for us as a place to congregate and come together rather than necessarily having a traditional office space,” said Foxworthy. “As a small company, every little bit helps. We are a completely self-funded, bootstrapped operation and so being able to leverage these very generous programs that the state has in place to ease some of that burden is extremely helpful.”
Vertex partners with a variety of businesses, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, to help them develop artificial intelligence products from end to end, according to Foxworthy.
“We are able to take a concept and develop the related models and framework for the solution and then take that all the way to full-scale production and deployment because we have both data scientists and software engineers on our team, which are able to curate that complete solution.”
The company currently has five employees. Foxworthy says as Vertex continues to grow, he expects to keep working from home with employees utilizing a collaboration space for in-person work as needed.
“I had always imagined that we would eventually get to the point where we needed a dedicated office space and somewhat because there’s some social pressure; the world expects you to have an office. But now that COVID has happened and attitude has shifted, I think it’s really just given us the freedom to say that’s what we would prefer to do and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Foxworthy says his short-term goals for the company is to complete a series of software platforms as part of a subscription offering that he says will accelerate the development of data science solutions for companies, in addition to the services Vertex already provides.
Looking over the next several years, he says the goal is to create more niche solutions for specific industries based off the current platform.