The Brewery District headquarters that Aware envisions as "the best office and startup environment in the entire Midwest" will have the expected game room, but also a rooftop patio, podcast studio and "bourbon room," according to plans filed with the city.
Hiring already is under way for Aware's pledge to surpass 210 jobs in a proposed tax incentive on Monday's Columbus City Council agenda.
The big data and cybersecurity startup is investing $1.2 million renovating the century-old Hoster Brewing Co. Ice House at 455 S. Ludlow Alley, according to the proposal. The project cost was not previously available.
The five-year-old company raised $60 million last fall in a round led by Goldman Sachs, and is aiming for an IPO or acquisition in the next few years.
Aware announced in April that it planned to move to the larger building to accommodate its growing workforce, even though some work remotely, because it needs creative collaboration space when teams meet in person.
The project also will create a briefing center to demonstrate its technology that helps employers manage regulatory compliance and cybersecurity while analyzing employee engagement through platforms such as Slack and Facebook Workplace.
"We'll fly in prospects and the top CEOs for the world's best companies here to Columbus, to showcase what it would be like to use or have Aware's technology," co-founder and CEO Jeff Schumann said in April. "It'll become a really, really powerful tool for us in recruiting, but also in selling and building our business long term."
The city Department of Development has proposed a five-year jobs incentive in exchange for a pledge to add 151 high-paying jobs to a base of 60. Aware already had grown to 115 employees as of April, and nearly 150 are listed this week on LinkedIn. Many companies seeking incentives start hiring during the months of negotiations.
Salaries range from $105,000 to $202,500, according to the proposal. Total payroll would top $30 million with the retained jobs.
The incentive would pay Aware a variable rate on employee city income tax withholding: 30% for new hires who are Columbus residents and 25% for others.
That's estimated to save the company, legally named Nullable Inc., $696,000 to $836,000 over the life of the deal, depending on the residency mix, while still netting the city about $2 million in new income tax – about $400,000 annually in the city's $1 billion budget. Incentives are paid annual installments based only on net new payroll created.
Mode Architects is designing the headquarters and Dupler Office is the interior designer. Columbus-based Kolbe Construction Services Inc. is the general contractor.
Plans for the 26,000 square feet in three of the building's four floors were filed as part of the building permit issued in May. As well as work stations, multiple sizes of conference and training rooms and the theater-like customer demonstration center, amenities include a third-floor outdoor patio, kitchens, a fireplace, a game room, a podcast room, a private lactation room, a library and a bourbon room with sofa and armchairs.
The current office a few blocks south at 111 Liberty St. also has a bourbon room. Beer taps and in-office bars are common in tech, where employees tend to put in long hours.
Why employers use Aware
Aware's revenue tripled last year as demand soared along with adoption of collaboration platforms to accommodate the pandemic's work-from-home shift. Microsoft has reported use of Teams more than tripled, for example. That's led to an increase in monitoring software from many vendors, according to research by PrivacyCo Ltd.
The trend of employee monitoring software in turn has raised privacy concerns.
Aware itself has no access to user data. Instead, employers use the software to detect security breaches such as violating privacy laws, workplace harassment or growing dissatisfaction, so the employer can intervene.
Aware and Deloitte collaborated on a white paper, posted on the company website, to explore the "fine line" for ethical use of communications data – which technically the employer owns.
In one case study in the report, an employer detected within hours that rumors and negative sentiment were spreading during a possible merger discussion and was able to quickly craft clearer communication to address employee concerns.
"Data privacy is one of the most important components in supporting the ethical use of this data," according to the report. "To build trust with workers, organizations should start by transparently sharing information regarding what data is collected, what it is used for, and why."
