Spotify maintains faith in post Brexit U.K. with new office

Music streaming service Spotify Ltd is moving to a new London office in order to double its workforce over the next two years, focusing on roles including engineering, data and machine learning.

Spotify will move to the Adelphi building, which overlooks the River Thames and is just a few steps from Trafalgar Square and the Charing Cross rail station, where it will expand its current 200-strong workforce with research and development staff.

“London will be one of our major hubs where we’ll house key investment areas including expansion of our subscription-commerce capabilities,” said Jason Richman, vice president of product at Spotify.

Spotify’s plans are another stamp of confidence by a major tech company in the future of London and the U.K. in attracting tech talent. The British government Tuesday revealed plans to double the number of visas for highly skilled workers, including technology-savvy candidates.

Facebook Inc., Snap Inc. and Google have all announced plans to increase hiring in the U.K., while Apple Inc. is leasing about 500,000 square-feet of office space at Battersea Power Station on the south bank of the Thames.

Spotify’s new hires in London will initially focus on engineering across front end, back end, machine learning, and data, followed by design and research roles. London will join existing Spotify R&D hubs in Stockholm, Gothenburg, New York, San Francisco, and Boston.

Spotify, the world’s largest paid music streaming service, is currently planning to skip a traditional share sale and list directly on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has already raised more than USD1 billion in equity and obtained a $1 billion convertible loan from investors led by TPG in March 2016.

Total revenue for Spotify Ltd, its U.K. domiciled business, increased to 237.8 million pounds ($313 million) over 2016, up from 187 million pounds the previous year, with the number of active users increasing 33 percent to 7.1 million and paid subscribers up 64 percent to 2.8 million, according to accounts filed in the U.K. in late October. Giles Turner, Bloomberg