OnDeck Capital Inc., which has hired 200 workers for its Denver office since it opened in 2013, is looking at tripling the size of its local staff.

The financial-services company (NYSE: ONDK) uses technology to collect data about small-business loan applicants and determine whether to grant the deals within hours.

OnDeck is hoping to 400 workers to its sales, operations and software development team in the next five years.
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However, Denver is competing for the economic boost against both Virginia and New York — where OnDeck’s other existing offices are — and against Phoenix and Salt Lake City, which also are wooing the company that became publicly traded last year.

The Colorado Economic Development Commission voted unanimously today to offer as much as $10.1 million in job-growth incentive tax credits to the New York-headquartered company over the next eight years for the creation of those jobs, which would come with an average annual wage of $102,525 — 1.6 times the average annual wage in Denver County.

Michelle Hadwiger, deputy director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, said the jobs would boost the state’s effort to attract workers in the financial-services sector.

OnDeck is not the only company that will be pitting Denver against Arizona in a bidding war, however.

EDC members also voted to offer as much as $2 million in incentives to an unnamed, privately held travel and leisure company headquartered in Denver that is considering expanding its 200-person workforce by another 129 employees at an average annual wage of $65,791.

That company is considering expanding in Arizona, and would move its existing workforce outside of Colorado if it decides to grow in that state instead. (In contrast, OnDeck’s existing Denver workforce will remain here regardless of where it chooses to expand.)

The commission also voted unanimously to offer as much as $3.5 million in job-growth incentive tax credits to an unnamed Canada-based global manufacturing firm that supports the agricultural industry.

That company, which already has a presence in Colorado, is looking to relocate one of its divisions to one of the four states in which it houses an existing subsidiary and create about 230 jobs at an average annual wage of $96,086.

Most of those jobs would be filled by new hires rather than by workers moving south from Canada, Hadwiger said.

Finally, EDC members approved a $200,000 film production incentive for Canadian production company Tricon Media Inc. to tape a season of a new show called “Rocky Mountain Reno” in which former “Bachelorette” star Trista Sutter and her husband, Ryan, help prospective home buyers to renovate and restore old homes.