24-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Retail tech company Stackline takes top floors in Seattle tower
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"It's definitely our expectation this will be our long-term headquarters," the CEO says.
Artificial intelligence-enabled retail intelligence and activation platform Stackline on Thursday showed off its new headquarters space on the top two floors of downtown Seattle's Madison Centre.
"It's definitely our expectation this will be our long-term headquarters," company CEO Michael Lagoni said in an interview. The fact there's room to grow in the 36-story building "was a big selling point for us."
The company was scheduled to tour more space in the building Thursday afternoon, Stackline Vice President of Finance Jonathan Jolley said. Around 80% of the tower at 920 Fifth Ave. is leased.
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Stackline is subleasing floors 35 and 36 from online insurance company Assurance, which leased the space in 2019, reportedly for an annual gross rental rate of $65 a square foot, which at the time was among the highest rates in the region.
Terms of the sublease were not disclosed, but based on when Assurance inked its deal, it's likely seven years are left on lease, which includes a private rooftop space.
It's a far cry from the tiny Capitol Hill apartment where 11 years ago Lagoni launched the firm, which builds subscription-based e-commerce tools for thousands of the largest consumer brands and retailers. Among them are Apple, Starbucks, General Mills, Sony, Nike and others.
"We didn't even have room for a dinner table. My wife and I just ate dinner on the floor every night those first two years while we were bootstrapping the company," Lagoni said.
Since then the company has grown to 250 employees globally, with around 155 people working at the Seattle headquarters. Others offices are in Minneapolis, New York City, Salt Lake City, London and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The timing of the company's launch was impeccable, coming as e-commerce was about to explode. Online retail sales have grown from about 1% of the U.S. market to about 35%, according to Lagoni, who previously worked at Amazon.
"We were profitable by the end of our first day, and we've been profitable ever since," he added.
In 2020, Stackline received its first outside investment, $50 million from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The following year Stackline received a $130 million investment from TA Associates. Goldman and TA acquired minority shares in Stackline, which is majority owned by employees.
The 44,000-square-foot deal is one of the largest in-city tech leases over the last year. JLL brokers Sam Dommer and Doug Hanafin represented Stackline.
"It's refreshing to see a high-tech company making a long-term commitment to downtown Seattle," Hanafin said.
Stackline will move next month out of around 58,000 square feet from nearby F5 Tower. Stackline wasn't using all the space there.
Stackline says the move to Madison Centre is long-term commitment to foster collaboration, innovation, and provide an exceptional employee experience.
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