RENO, Nev. — For years, Bay Area software company rfXcel had been looking to relocate to a city with a lower cost of living, a high quality of life, and a growing technology sector.
After a long search, the company finally found what it was looking for when it visited Reno.
On Tuesday, Nov. 27, the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada officially announced rfXcel as the latest Bay Area-founded tech company to migrate to the Biggest Little City.
Reno was the last place the company looked at after first visiting Seattle, Salt Lake City, Boise and Phoenix, said Glenn Abood, founder and CEO of rfXcel.
“We’re ecstatic,” Abood told a group of reporters following a press conference at the Peppermill in Reno. “This has been something that we’ve been working on for a while in terms of where we wanted to relocate, and we finally found the place.”
Come December, rfXcel will open its new corporate headquarters and operations center in Reno, bringing 200 jobs to Northern Nevada with an average salary of $100,000, Abood said.
He said the company expects to hire 80 people immediately, with the remaining 120 hires to come over the next several years. Abood said the company is looking to make hires in many areas, including software engineering, technical support, sales and marketing, accounting, human resources and more.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval told reporters that rfXcel’s decision to move to Reno is “another huge win” for Northern Nevada.
“It really diversifies our portfolio in the technology sector,” he said. “I’m really excited to welcome another company to the Nevada family.”
So, what exactly does the newest member of the state’s tech family do?
A track and trace solutions provider, rfXcel’s technology optimizes supply chain operations with serialization software, regulatory compliance management, supply chain visibility software and Internet of Things (IoT) monitoring.
Moreover, their tech enables products and goods manufactured domestically and abroad to reach consumers without the threat of contamination, adulteration or diversion.
In other words, in light of the recent E. coli outbreak stemming from contaminated romaine lettuce, a company like rfXcel couldn’t be more relevant — and necessary.
“If the romaine growers use our technology, we obviously wouldn’t be able to prevent E. coli, but what we could do is hone in on where its source was pretty quickly,” Abood explained. “It took the FDA over a week to figure out where the source of that produce was and they didn’t pin it down to a farm, they just said it’s Monterey County. And Monterey County is pretty big. Now all of those growers are not able to distribute their product anymore.”
While rfXcel has recently moved into the food and beverage sector, Abood said the company is largely focused on the pharmaceutical space. He said the U.S. market has a fairly small number of counterfeit incidents, but there’s a dramatic increase overseas.
“When you go down to your local drug store to get your prescription filled, the last thing you want to worry about is if the product is genuine or not,” he said. “So what we’re doing with our technology is making it possible for pharmaceutical companies to tighten up that net so that counterfeiters can’t get their production in."
"Products that are coming from overseas," he continued, "it's very easy these days to counterfeit a label, counterfeit a bottle, even make a pill look exactly the same as the real thing. You, as the consumer, don’t necessarily know when you buy something like that. What we're trying to do is make it easier for companies to focus on this issue and prevent it from happening."
