Video: Yammer Celebrates Tech City
General manager Georg Ell explains why London is a great place for startups
Last week, enterprise social network Yammer had opened its new headquarters in East London’s Tech City. The premises were christened by Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who admitted he used Yammer to organise a 200 guest dinner party.
The company will occupy three floors in a building on Great Eastern Street, right in the middle of the third largest startup ecosystem in the world. TechWeekEurope has received an exclusive video in which Yammer explains why London is the perfect destination for any company looking to grow.
Choose London
Yammer, originally an enterprise microblogging service, was launched in 2008 at the TechCrunch50 conference. The company, often described as “Facebook for business”, experienced rapid growth, and had attracted over 5 million users by July 2012.
Yammer moved to Tech City last July, when it opened its first European headquarters. Another move was necessary due to expansion of the business, which came after the social network was acquired by Microsoft in a £763 million takeover in June this year.
According to Georg Ell, general manager of EMEA operations at Yammer, for its first engineering centre outside San Francisco the company had to choose between London and New York. In the end, the British capital won thanks to its developed startup culture and wealth of talent.
What makes London a great place to grow a startup? You can find some answers in the video below. It offers opinions from Elizabeth Varney, co-founder and CEO of TechHub, Pru Ashby, an expert on Tech City for London and Partners, and Richard Evans, principal analyst at Ovum.
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