AMERICAN technology business Cherwell Software is launching a European research and development centre in Dundee because it wants to be part of the city’s “up and coming scene”.
The firm, which was founded in Colorado 14 years ago, has taken space in waterfront office complex Dundee One, from where it will establish an engineering team that will serve the whole of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
Cherwell’s vice-president of engineering Josh Turpen said that he and chief product officer Steve Rodda had chosen Dundee for the site of the centre after being impressed by the calibre of software engineers coming out if the city’s two universities.
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He added that the decision had been further influenced by the hire of Fraser Patullo, a Dundee native and Abertay University computing graduate, as the firm’s director of engineering.
“Both Steve Rodda and I have worked with developers in Dundee in the past and we’re excited to do so again,” Mr Turpen said.
“There are two universities here with top-notch technology courses and this is about making an investment in the town but also making it a tech centre.
“Edinburgh has a bigger pool of people but we felt that Dundee was up and coming and we wanted to be part of that scene.”
Adding that there are “quite a few tech businesses” based in Dundee One, Mr Turpen said that had also been a draw because “tech communities tend to inspire more tech companies”.
Initially the firm intends to have a team of 16 engineers working out of Dundee, but Mr Turpen said there is “no limit” to the number of people it could end up employing there.
“As the company grows – and we have been growing year on year – we will expand here,” he said.
“We’ve hired three total engineering teams this year and two of those are in Dundee. I see no reason why that won’t continue.”
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Cherwell currently employs 460 people across eight offices, four of which are in the US with one in Australia.
In Europe, it already has presences in Swindon, Reading and Munich, although unlike the Dundee offering these bases focus on sales and product support rather than product development.
“EMEA is our fastest-growing market at the moment so we expect the engineering teams to interact a lot with our other teams,” Mr Turpen said.
Dundee staff will also work directly with the technology team that Mr Rodda leads in Colorado Springs.
Having initially focused on creating software that solves IT problems, Cherwell has since expanded into developing full enterprise service management software.
“We do everything from HR to facilities to the whole nine yards,” Mr Turpen said.
The firm’s financial backers include US private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), which last year invested $50 million into the firm via its Next Generation Technology Fund. Earlier this year KKR invested a further $172m in the firm.
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KKR is also one of the main investors in fantasy sports business FanDuel, which was founded in Edinburgh but generates all its revenues in the US and is currently the subject of an acquisition by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair.
Due to the valuation given to FanDuel as part of that transaction, the shares held by the firm’s founders, early investors and former staff have all been wiped out, with the upside of the deal going to FanDuel’s preference shareholders. KKR is the firm’s largest shareholder.
When it made its $172m investment in Cherwell in April this year, KKR’s TMT group managing director Vini Letteri said the investment business believed that Cherwell was “a leader in its industry” that had “enormous potential for growth”.
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