Optiv Security, Colorado’s leading cybersecurity firm, has relocated its headquarters from Denver to Leawood, Kan., dealing another blow to the region’s reeling tech sector.
“We closed our Denver office; however, Colorado remains a critical market for Optiv, and that is not changing,” said Jeremy Jones, a senior manager of public relations with the company, in an email.
Optiv has been the marquee tenant at 1144 15th St. since 2018. However, after subleasing one of its three floors to PNC Bank in 2021, it is now vacating its remaining space on floors 29 and 30.
The company, like many white-collar firms, shifted to remote work during the pandemic, and continued those flexible arrangements.
The company’s remaining space, covering a combined 39,415 square feet, is .
“Our couple hundred Colorado-based employees will continue working remotely and serving our clients just as they do today,” Jones said.
While workers remain in their homes, executive control is shifting permanently. Denver is no longer the headquarters and isn’t even listed as a company location on Optiv’s website.
Its official home base is now 5100 W. 115th Place in Leawood, in Kansas’ Johnson County, between Overland Park and Kansas City.
What Denver gets to keep in the split, at least for now, is a large sign bearing the Optiv name that glows a bright white at night above15th and Arapahoe streets.
A pattern of flight
The privately held firm, which traces half of its parentage to downtown Denver, didn’t make a formal public announcement before moving.
That echoed a similar departure on Feb. 17, when Palantir, Colorado’s largest big data and AI firm, announced its headquarters relocation to southern Florida on X.
But unlike Palantir, which was a recent transplant, Optiv had deep roots in Colorado going back to 2002, when tech executive Dan Burns launched a hugely successful startup called Accuvant.
Based downtown, Accuvant rapidly became a national provider of cybersecurity products and consulting services, proving Boulder wasn’t the only incubator in Colorado where tech babies could grow into robust companies.
In November 2014, private equity firm Blackstone combined Accuvant and FishNet Security, located in the Kansas City area, in a $2 billion “merger of equals.”
The combined entity was rebranded Optiv Security, with Denver getting the headquarters and Leawood remaining a significant base of operations.
In 2016, Blackstone flipped the company to another private equity firm, KKR, which put $1 billion in debt on the company’s balance sheet to fund its buyout.
To accommodate an expanding workforce, Optiv moved into downtown’s shiniest and newest office tower in 2018.
Developed by Hines, locals dubbed it the “Burrito Building” or “Glass Burrito” because of its rounded, curved glass profile and because Chipotle was supposed to co-anchor the tower alongside Optiv.
Although it signed a 15-year lease for three floors, Chipotle never moved into its new global headquarters. Incoming CEO Brian Niccol relocated the company’s headquarters to Newport Beach, Calif., where he lived.
The move stripped Colorado of one of its iconic companies. Niccol stayed at the helm for a little over six years, until Aug. 31, 2024, when he left to take over as chairman and CEO of Starbucks.
Erosion of a tech hub
Maddy Stevenson, a vice president with JLL, speaking on a panel at the , said that Denver’s office market has become a game of “musical chairs.”
“Demand is internal,” she said Wednesday morning.
Tenants move around, typically from older buildings to newer ones with more amenities. But few new tenants are arriving from out-of-state to boost overall demand for office space.
And when big and high-profile tenants leave the state, that is a problem.
Palantir has a market value almost as large as all other Colorado public companies combined and a global workforce of 4,500. Optiv is the largest “pure-play” cybersecurity integrator with about 2,800 workers worldwide and 75% of Fortune 500 companies as clients.
Colorado for years had to cope with California tech firms and venture capitalists picking off its most promising tech startups and relocating them.
What it has faced in 2026 was the loss of two of its largest technology firms, one public and one private.
In April, a coalition of 230 business, technology and civic leaders under the banner Ensuring Colorado’s Innovation Future signed a letter warning that the state was losing its hard-won reputation as an innovation hub.
The letter urged immediate action, arguing the state and its residents could suffer irreparable harm for decades to come.
“Despite the extraordinary progress of the past two decades — and despite these enduring structural advantages — the foundation of Colorado technology and business leadership is deteriorating,” the letter said.
This summer, Gov. Jared Polis formed a competitiveness council to try to understand how and why Colorado has fallen behind other states on key economic measures like job growth and corporate retention.
The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade also plans to conduct more “exit” interviews of departing companies to better understand why they are leaving Colorado.
Optiv will likely be on that list. But it appears the company has been facing internal stresses beyond what some might argue is a less friendly business climate in Colorado.
KKR has tried and failed to sell the company, and plans for an IPO went nowhere, in part because of the $1 billion in debt KKR loaded onto Optiv’s balance sheet as part of the leveraged buyout in 2016.
Higher interest rates have contributed to rising debt payments, eating into the company’s cash flows and resulting in S&P cutting the company’s credit rating deep into junk territory.
KKR and Optiv have worked out extensions with creditors, pushing repayments back to 2028 and 2029, but the agreements don’t address the core problem of excessive debt.
Optiv has shifted from expanding its market to surviving the heavy financial load its private equity owners have placed on it. And Denver was on the losing end of that struggle.
