A Dayton software company is opening a second office to support its current and future growth.
Tangram Flex will soon launch its new location at the 444 Building on East Second Street in downtown Dayton. Located near its headquarters at the Avant-Garde building on East Third Street, the company's second office will be located in the former Mile Two space. Mile Two vacated the property after moving to The Manhattan building near Avant-Garde.
Tangram is investing between $400,000 and $500,000 in the new space, slated to open in late summer or early fall. Local companies Moda4 and Woodard Development are performing the design work and buildout.
Tangram will occupy just under 5,000 square feet on the second floor of the 444 Building. This will complement the firm's 7,000-square-foot location at Avant-Garde, which it will keep.
The new space will feature traditional workstations, collaboration and meeting space, and a classroom-style area for training and demonstrations. Tangram also will migrate its makerspace area to the new location.
"What we call our makerspace is basically all the toys the team tinkers with — 3D printers, drones, autonomous remote control cars, etc.," said Chrissy Hardin, vice president of operations at Tangram Flex. "We're migrating all that stuff over to the new space to give us more breathing room at our current location."
Tangram's employees will be able to utilize both locations as they please, Hardin said. The new space could serve as meeting space or function as a collaborative area where the team can focus on short-term projects in a more intimate environment.
"If they need to work intensely together for the shorter term, they can go over there and have that space to be close to each other and not be as spread out throughout the building," she said.
Hardin said the need for additional space is twofold.
First, the company is growing at a rapid rate. Tangram's current location was meant to hold up to 60 people, but the firm has grown to 76 employees. It also plans to hire another 12 to 15 people — primarily software engineers — by year's end.
In addition, Tangram was is need of collaborative space where employees and customers can better interact.
"A space like this that has room to bring customers in and demonstrate our software, to have an environment where we can model the software on customers' systems or have customers sit alongside our Tangram engineers and work together in a collaborative teaching and co-learning manner, we think is going to be huge for us," Hardin said. "We're setting up this space to be flexible and adaptable to a number of different scenarios."
Tangram Flex is a product-driven software company that provides custom service and expertise in system modernization, integration, assurance and autonomy. Its capabilities include software research, prototypes, services and products that enable rapid integration.
The firm combines engineering expertise with its component software integration platform product — Tangram Pro — to arm engineers with customized toolkits for meeting mission needs. The company also plans to roll out a new product called Tangram Maker, which is a free tool for engineers, students and innovators.
