US-headquartered cybersecurity firm Rapid7 has announced plans to open a new office in Belfast and hire 200 additional staff.
200 jobs are to be created by cybersecurity firm Rapid7 in Belfast as it eyes international expansion. In an announcement this morning (12 March), the company said it signed a 10-year lease for a 50,000 sq ft office space at Chichester House in the city’s central business district.
This will double the company’s workforce in the Belfast region, with the new roles set to include engineers, developers and customer advisors, among others.
The Boston-headquartered company currently operates in more than 120 countries globally and has more than 9,000 customers. The 200 new hires will join an existing Belfast team of around 170 staff.
Rapid7 provides visibility, analytics and automation for security, IT and DevOps teams.
The new office space in Belfast follows a full redevelopment of the building’s existing six storeys, an extension to the rear and the addition of two new upper floors. The development, led by Causeway Asset Management, represented an overall investment of £9m and work on the refurbishment and development of the scheme has just completed.
“Rapid7 is committed to investing in the company’s global expansion, particularly in areas with impressive technical talent such as Belfast,” said Jamie Kinch, vice-president of real estate and workplace experience at Rapid7.
Damian Mitchell, director at Causeway Asset Management, added: “The completed building is one of the best-connected office spaces in Belfast as proven by its platinum WiredScore rating; the first to be given to a building in Northern Ireland by the internationally recognised commercial real estate rating scheme for digital connectivity.”
Rapid7 has been particularly active on the island of Ireland, having announced in 2019 the acquisition of Galway-based NetFort for more than €10m. NetFort provided network traffic and security monitoring software for virtual and physical networks.
The Boston firm also announced in 2015 that it was to acquire the University College Dublin spin-out Logentries for $68m.
