Torch plans to continue investing in engineering talent in Buffalo following the completion of a $40 million round of venture capital funding.
Torch is headquartered in San Francisco but chose Buffalo as its technology hub several years ago. The company has a hybrid model out of the Hansa office space in downtown Buffalo, and it also hires tech talent remotely.
Torch has 23 local employees, led by chief technology officer Scott Mercer.
“Our plan is to keep growing, and this new round allows us to make those crucial R&D investments to ensure the growth is product-led,” Mercer said. “I'm always trying to hire technologists in Buffalo whenever possible.”
Mercer said Torch recently added a new-product engineering team and is in the process of adding another one. Some of those hires were in Buffalo and some live in other regions, he said.
Torch is a web-based training and professional development firm. The funding round, led by 137 Ventures, comes on the heels of a $25 million Series B raised by Torch last year.
Torch is among a growing collection of tech firms that are formally headquartered elsewhere but have significant operations and software presences in Buffalo. Some examples include business software corporation Odoo, which plans to nearly double its presence in Buffalo this year; barbershop app startup Squire, which was valued at $750 million in a funding round last year and has its largest employee cluster in Buffalo; electric vehicle charging startup SparkCharge, which just completed its own $22 million in venture funding and does all manufacturing in Buffalo; and cloud marketplace unicorn Tackle.io, which has a remote workforce but a growing team in Buffalo around CEO John Jahnke.
Torch is the 17th local startup to confirm a growth-oriented capital raise this year. The others are Circuit Clinical ($29 million), SparkCharge ($22 million), PostProcess Technologies ($5 million), VeriTX ($4.5 million), HELIXintel ($3 million), ShearShare ($2.3 million), Azuna Fresh ($2.5 million), Patient Pattern ($2 million), BetterMynd ($1 million), Cahill Tech ($375,000), Ellicottville Greens ($300,000), Swift Rails ($255,000) AireXpert ($125,000), Arbol ($110,000), Timberhut (undisclosed) and Ognomy (undisclosed).
