Schenectady

Transfinder, the transportation software company headquartered in Schenectady, reported record revenue of $11.6 million in 2015 — a 12 percent increase over 2014.

But for CEO Antonio Civitella, the company's biggest milestone last year may also have been the opening of its new office in Shanghai, China, where it already has a team of seven software developers.

The new office, which brings Transfinfer's total employment to about 100 people, allows the company to be working on new and updated software nearly around the clock. Transfinder is best known for bus routing software used by school districts, although it is branching out into new markets, including municipal logistics management and health care transportation.

"Not many companies can say they have a subsidiary in China," Civitella said. "We're going to be doing great things in China that other companies cannot do."

Transfinder's venture into China was begun after Civitella found it extremely hard to hire computer programmers at his Schenectady headquarters because of the lack of college graduates with computer science degrees.

It made more sense — at least until the Capital Region could educate more developers — to open an office in China rather than sponsor employees from China to work in Schenectady on work visas, a common practice in the software industry.

"It's very hard to keep them here," Civitella said.

Civitella said after Transfinder was able to figure out how to navigate the Chinese business and regulatory world — it took 10 months just to get the government to sign off on the company's name — he realized that the office has already been helping Transfinder grow. And his Schenectady developers love having a team that works while they are asleep — accelerating their speed to market with new software products.

"They are very hard working," Civitella said. "And they understand what it means to win."

Transfinder also opened a training center in Austin, Texas, where it brings in clients to learn how to use Transfinder software. Texas is the company's second-largest market behind New York.

That one-on-one customer engagement has helped Transfinder have a high retention rate and add new clients. The company added 168 new customers in 2015, more than 50 of which had been with a competitor. Because of that, Civitella promised the company would be expanding more.

"We are going to other locations," he said,

lrulison@timesunion.com • 518-454-5504 • @larryrulison