Vivacity Moving Its Rapidly Growing Education Technology Business To The Upstate
After Vivacity Tech opened a small office in the Upstate almost five years ago, the CEO and others visited – then realized the milieu fit the company’s mission.
“We had a couple of great people in the industry we wanted to hire who live in Greenville. A few of our remote employees visited and fell in love, so we decided to open a shop,” says Eli Maloley, founder and CEO of Vivacity Tech.
Vivacity sells computer technology and technology solutions used by students in kindergarten through 12th grade at over 2,000 school districts nationwide. Services are designed to minimize computer downtime and protect a school’s technology investments.
The education technology company was founded in Saint Paul, Minnesota. But after Maloley and his wife, Leah, made the trek south to visit Vivacity’s newest office, it wasn’t long before they moved their family to the Upstate permanently.
“Downtown Greenville is pretty spectacular. There’s a reason Greenville is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. It’s a thriving economy. The culture is tremendous,” Maloley says. “Southern hospitality is a real thing. It makes its way into the business.”
The business has made its way south, too, he says.
“We’ve been in a very slow transition. When the business grows, and a new employment opportunity pops up, we make sure that person is in Greenville.”
Maloley says Vivacity approaches sales with a “consultative partnership” technique that focuses on identifying needs and providing solutions rather than just pushing to close deals with clients.
The strategy is natural for Upstate employees who are already steeped in Southern hospitality, he says. “We recognized that early on.”
Founded in 2018, Vivacity Tech has about 250 employees with distribution hubs in Greenville, Chicago, Denver and Saint Paul.
The company is actively providing service for more than 1 million computer devices in schools.
Vivacity was on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s highest-growth private companies in 2023, 2024 and 2025. The list reports that the company’s business nearly quadrupled over three years.
“I’ve hired so many creative people over the years,” Maloley says, standing beside Vivacity’s first patent. “We just filed another patent for a new type of product. I think it is going to transform our industry.”
In October, the company opened a $1.6 million warehouse at 301 Piedmont Grove Park in Greenville. With more than 100 operations and logistics staff members, the operation will increase the company’s distribution capacity.
Now, Maloley says the Vivacity staff is looking at office space and plans to officially move the company headquarters from Saint Paul to Greenville in the next few months.
Ultimately, the company will create more than 400 total jobs in the Upstate, he says.
In the Upstate, Vivacity provides products and services to Anderson School District 2, Anderson School District 5, Reason & Republic Charter Schools, and the School District of Oconee County.
About 70% of school districts in the United States deliver curriculum to K-12 students using the Google-developed Chromebook, Maloley says. (Most of the others use Windows laptops or Apple iPads.)
Vivacity focuses on the Chromebook, he says. “Gone are the days of pencil and paper.”
“The Chromebook is the focal point of the partnership between us and the school district. What’s unique is that we are the most vertically integrated Chromebook provider in the industry. Any product or service that touches the Chromebook is something we’ve engineered or developed or designed ourselves,” Maloley says.
“We’ve developed software that allows the school district to manage its entire fleet of Chromebooks, which is spectacular. We partner with Google for Education.”
Vivacity also provides student-ready computers and charging stations.
“When we deliver Chromebooks to a school, they can hand them straight to students and not worry about them as an IT department or the administration. They’re ready to go. We do all that work on the front end,” Maloley says.
Maloley says he’s even hired designers to develop backpacks and Chromebook cases.
School districts decide how computer repairs are managed.
“If they want us to do every repair, we’ll do them all. If they want parts to perform their own repairs, we’ll provide the parts. If they want a little bit of both, they can do the easy stuff and send us the hard stuff,” Maloley explains.
“We come alongside whatever they’ve identified as best. We’re going to be their partner and help them get there faster.”
Some school districts allow Vivacity to train students to be repair technicians.
“We help school districts set up a student-led repair depot. We’ll give them tool kits. We’ll provide 80 hours of curriculum to students. That’s been a tremendous win-win,” Maloley says.
“We’re simple in the fact that the Chromebook is what we do. But we’re really complex with everything around the Chromebook and how we’re adding value to the school districts and helping them teach the future generation,” Maloley says.
“We are creating things here in Greenville that will transcend the global education scene.”
Vivacity is also the first and only Public Benefit Corporation providing K-12 technology hardware to schools. A PBC is a for-profit company legally committed to a social or environmental mission in addition to its profit goals.
Vivacity has pledged to give a portion of its profits to schools for technology-backed teaching. The company has donated more than $1 million in technology since its inception.
“School districts are generally cash-strapped, and their tech teams are always asked to do more with less,” Maloley says. “I saw us incorporating as a PBC as a way to put a stake in the ground and say, ‘We’re not just going to say that we’re held to a higher standard. We’re actually going to put some teeth behind it.’”
In addition, each employee is given one day off per month to volunteer in the community. A staff member organizes opportunities to help.
Maloley says employees have provided more than 45,000 volunteer hours in service to nonprofits.
“We are raising the bar in terms of philanthropy for businesses,” he says. “We hope to make Greenville proud. That’s really it at the end of the day.
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