San Francisco-headquartered local business directory player Yelp Inc is to open a new European headquarters in Dublin that will initially generate 100 new jobs.
In doing so Yelp joins the top born-on-the-internet companies that have originated in Silicon Valley and made Dublin their choice for European HQ, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Dropbox, AOL and many others.
Yelp connects people with local businesses in their area by overlaying directory information with mapping information.
In the first quarter of 2014 it had a monthly average of 132m unique visitors and Yelpers – people who write reviews – had posted more than 57m rich, local reviews of everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists.
Some 61m unique visitors visited Yelp via their mobile device on a monthly average basis during the first quarter 2014.
To support and drive Yelp’s growth across Europe, a wide range of new roles are being created, ranging from sales executive to account management and from product engineering to finance. Recruitment commences immediately.
Growing its roots
“Expanding Yelp’s international operations with the opening of our new office in Dublin is a landmark moment in the company’s history,” Jeremy Stoppelman, Co-founder and CEO at Yelp explained.
“This new office will be home to our European operations and will be the engine behind our European revenue generation efforts.
“Ireland offers us fantastic access to multiple language capabilities from a tech savvy and educated population, not to mention a country that has proven to be a home-away-from-home for a number of existing Yelp employees that have already relocated there.”
Yelp was founded in San Francisco in July 2004. Since then, Yelp communities have taken root in major metros across North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia and New Zealand.
“As part of our recovery plan it is important for Ireland to continue to win investments from leading international digital media companies by providing an excellent business environment supported by our exceptionally talented people and our strong track record,” Taoiseach Enda Kenny said, welcoming the investment.
“Silicon Valley is a vitally important market for Ireland.”
Yelp is yet another example of a successful technology company founded in California that has chosen Ireland as its base for European operations, IDA Ireland CEO Barry O’Leary who was accompanying the Taoiseach on an exports mission to California pointed out.
“Yelp is an excellent addition to the very strong cluster of Internet services businesses with European operation centres operating from Ireland. Dublin is a recognised European hub of international tech and multilingual talent which continues to attract leading international companies.”
Yelp image via Shutterstock
