Valued at $1 billion earlier this year, this investment makes Pivotal one of the largest technology start-ups to choose the UK as the centre for its European operations. Pivotal is looking to capitalise on the area’s creative and digital skills base and to use it as the foundation for its growth plans in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
US-head-quartered Pivotal was spun out of EMC and VMware, with additional investment from General Electric, in April 2013.
Over the next ten years, the funding will support the set-up of the new office; the recruitment and development of top talent; and the expansion of Pivotal’s customer base across the EMEA region. Pivotal will work closely with local community and industry groups, for example, data scientist and engineering initiatives, to open up its office space for wider use.
Commenting on the commitment, Paul Maritz, CEO, Pivotal stated: “Tech City is one of the most exciting technology eco-systems in the world right now, thanks to its fantastic and dynamic mix of talent, infrastructure and the active support of the UK government. Pivotal is a company that helps other companies rapidly accelerate their growth, and we want to play a key role in helping organisations of all sizes, from dynamicstart-ups through to global enterprises, to attract talent, grow and innovate in their marketplaces. Becoming part of the Tech City community is exactly what Pivotal wanted in order to foster high growth opportunities across multiplesectors.”
Pivotal, the company at the intersection of big data, platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and agile development, enables the creation of modern software applications that use big and fast data on a single, cloud independent platform. Companies can analyse massive data repositories from their organisation using familiar interfaces in a common virtual environment – enabling them to provide more business value and new offerings for their customers. Time-to-value for this new class of applications is dramaticallyimproved, allowing continuous updates and the agility to innovate and grow at a faster rate.
Creative Industries Minister Ed Vaizey said: “This level of investment by a data giant like Pivotal is a clear indication of the UK’s ability to attract the brightest and best to bring their business to the UK. I’m particularly excited that Pivotal are already working with British businesses like notonthehighstreet and shutl, helping them grow and scale here in Tech City. Pivotal are a valuable addition to the ecosystem here in the UK.”
Pivotal works with start-ups such as Funding Circle and NotOnTheHighStreet.com, in addition to enabling larger businesses to move towards a more customer-centric focus. Pivotal’s approach to helping businesses to accelerate innovation is crucial to encouraging growth and to fuel long-term economic recovery.
Russell Acton, Vice President of EMEA, Pivotal commented that, “Aside from the obvious infrastructure benefits of opening an office in London, one of our crucial requirements was to be integrated into a community that didn’t just offer skills and inspiration, but was also somewhere that we could give back to in terms of shared knowledge and space. We are already in conversation with a number of locally-based initiatives to enable them to use our space to come together. One initiative focusses on the adoption of data science and another encourages women to choose an engineering career. Also we envisage our customers will regularly work in the office so they can gain first-hand access to our talented team.”
“It is clear that right now London is at the forefront of technology and innovation across Europe. Companies like Pivotal are the lifeblood of start-ups that are looking for new ways to capitalise the wealth of data that can open the door to understanding their market and customers better”, comments Andy Mendelsohn, Chief Technology Officer at Funding Circle. “What is most exciting, personally, is that there is still so much untapped potential across the City. I believe we are at the beginning of a very exciting period for UK tech companies.”
