SnapDNA, a company that created technology to improve food safety testing, picked Broomfield as its new headquarters, state officials announced Wednesday, joining a growing number of foodtech companies locating or growing in Colorado.

The company, now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, plans to hire up to 144 workers in the coming years with an average salary of $124,573. Colorado sweetened the pot by adding up to $1.45 million in job creation tax credits over the next eight years.

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“SnapDNA is excited to be part of Colorado’s emerging centers of excellence in bioscience, technology development, and product manufacturing,” CEO David Medin said in a news release. “Colorado is ideally located and central to the country’s largest and most influential food companies; a number of which we are already engaged with … and our employees love the can-do culture and world-class outdoor activities that Colorado offers.”

SnapDNA “creates molecular detection technology for food safety, which enables rapid onsite detection of foodborne pathogens,” according to paperwork submitted to Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

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It was also looking at Austin, Texas, or remaining in California with a combined headquarters and development facility. When Colorado’s Economic Development Commission discussed the project in September, the company only had four employees and contractors. But the company agreed to “raise significant amounts of capital” as part of its deal with the state.

Some of that capital infusion came from the Rocky Mountain Venture Club as well as the economic development office’s Global Business Development Advanced Industries grant program, which provided a $250,000 Early Stage Accelerator grant. Commissioners said the company would help with “growing and diversifying the food and agriculture industry in Colorado and, in particular, the foodtech sector.”

“Colorado is a hub for innovative technologies including those in the bioscience and food tech sector,” Gov. Jared Polis said in the release. “We welcome the opportunity to work with SnapDNA to support our vital food and agriculture industries while creating more than 140 good-paying jobs for Coloradans.”

Those jobs include microbiologists, production and test engineers, sales and marketing workers, and managers.

SnapDNA “invented the first self-contained, rapid, on-site analysis designed to replace food pathogen lab tests. Results are available in less than 1 hour and hundreds of samples can be analyzed per day.” The technology promises to “enable predictive analytics that can reduce the occurrence, risk and severity of large-scale outbreaks, lower production costs and (provide) fresher, safer food for consumers,” according to the release.

The state reported that 15 Colorado startups in food tech received $244 million in venture capital funding last year, the sixth highest total in the U.S.

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“Snap DNA joins a rapidly growing national hub for bioscience and food technology in Colorado, where companies such as Evolutionary Genomics, Growcentia, and Myco Technology are pioneering revolutionary solutions for the future of food and agriculture,” according to the release.