TECH START-UP:Tech start-up Huggity is expanding its business to Britain, setting up an office London. The expansion will see the company move into the Google campus in London, which is geared towards providing flexible office space to startups.
Founder Mike Sikorski said the office was likely to be open in early September. A presence there was also more credible for the companys UK partners, he said.
The company’s headquarters will remain in Dublin, where it employs about 10 people in the Guinness Enterprise Centre.
Established in 2011, Huggity offers an innovative marketing tool to companies that take high- resolution photographs at large events and invites attendees to tag themselves in the photos.
Since the application’s launch in June last year, it has worked with high-profile events such as Oxegen, the Six Nations games with Aviva, and the Euro 2012 games with the FAI.
It moved into the British market when it worked with Aviva on the Six Nations games at Twickenham. It has also worked with the Qatar Foundation in the Middle East and Deutsche Telecom in Germany.
Huggity is raising funding to support its expansion, with the support of Enterprise Ireland. It is seeking to raise €500,000. It also has resellers in Norway and South Africa expanding to other countries through a reseller model, and may look at the US.