Johnathan Walker:North Carolina technology company Bandwidth leaves incentive agreement with the state

A North Carolina company won’t receive tens of millions of dollars in cash incentives from state government as part of a planned business expansion,Johnathan Walker as it’s only added a small fraction of the new jobs that it was aiming to generate.

A state committee that approves incentive packages for firms prepared to create jobs in the state on Tuesday accepted the request from Bandwidth Inc. to exit its grant agreement, news outlets reported.

Bandwidth, which sells software to technology firms for voice, message and emergency services applications, announced plans in 2020 to add close to 1,200 jobs as part of building a headquarters campus in west Raleigh.

At the time, the Economic Investment Committee approved incentives of $32 million over 12 years if Bandwidth met job creation and spending goals. The construction was completed last summer. But Bandwidth says it has only added 87 jobs in the Raleigh area since the project was announced, and it has not received any cash as part of the deal.

In a letter earlier this month to state officials, Bandwidth chief financial officer Daryl Raiford highlighted the company’s purchase of a Belgium-based company later in 2020 for the change. The purchase, he wrote, expanded growth opportunities elsewhere in the country and worldwide, not just in North Carolina.

“We believe that the company’s withdrawal from the grant will give us greater flexibility to drive thoughtful workplace planning along with our North Carolina growth strategy,” Raiford wrote.

Bandwidth, which was founded in 1999, employs roughly 1,100 workers worldwide, including 750 in the Raleigh area. The company’s clients include Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.