Signifyd significantly accelerated its ongoing global expansion today, announcing the opening of a new European headquarters in London and Signifyd Belfast Labs, a new research and development center in Northern Ireland.
The new locations are a response to Signifyd’s fast-growing European customer base and a big step toward making good on its European ambitions which it laid out last spring. At the time, the company was closing a $100 million funding round meant to support the rapid growth the company is seeing in the enterprise sector globally.
“As we’ve accelerated our international expansion and our move into the enterprise retail sector, it’s vital that we build a team with a broad worldview and one that works in the geographies where our customers work,” said Signifyd Co-founder and CEO Raj Ramanand. “That means we can be more responsive and that we can proactively help solve the challenges our customers face, no matter where they operate.”
The European headquarters in London’s West End will serve the EMEA market and will be headed up by Ed Whitehead, a London-based sales executive, who’s worked for companies including EMR, Experian and Gigya.
European order value has increased four times
He’ll be leading a team that will capitalize on Signifyd’s rapid growth in the region. The value of European orders protected by Signifyd’s innovative technology has grown by more than four times in the past two years. Its customer base in European countries has doubled to more than 500 retailers of all sizes, selling goods in all retail verticals.
This is an exciting day for Signifyd, but more importantly, it’s an exciting day for online merchants operating in Europe,” said Whitehead, Signifyd’s managing director for Europe. “Guaranteed fraud protection has captured the mainstream market. But we know that retailers in different parts of the world face different challenges and have different priorities.
Signifyd’s Belfast Labs will be a premier technology hub in the city’s Cathedral Quarter. It will be a key driver of the company’s continuing innovation around the world and an incubator for ecommerce solutions that will help retailers provide friction-free buying experiences no matter where in the world they are located.
Signifyd named Trevor McCullough Belfast Labs’ director of engineering. He’s led teams at NaviNet, NANTHEALTH and Servasport in Belfast. The R&D center will house a team of top engineers in Northern Ireland’s vibrant technology hub.
This is the kind of opportunity that those passionate about technology live for,” McCullough said. “We’ll be rapidly building a team from the ground up, that in the end, will make the business lives of thousands of customers better. The chance to be a part of a team like that doesn’t come along all that often.”
Signifyd expands to speed digital transformation worldwide
Signifyd’s accelerated expansion comes at a time when ecommerce is being transformed. Digitally native retailers are showing a new path to success, behaving as agile startups and building close connections with their customers. Meantime, consumers in the age of Amazon have expectations for selection, speed and customer care that are higher than ever. All this while technology has evolved to a state in which retailers can build a tech stack that delivers on the promise of friction-free commerce.
And while those changes are universal, retailers’ challenges, and what’s expected of them by consumers, varies by geography. Retailers now are as much a part of the global economy as any industry, meaning they need to be more sophisticated in how they attract and serve customers in different parts of the world.
Signifyd has anticipated and prepared for the rapid changes. Its investment in Europe, for instance, has been ongoing. The company was a leader among fraud protection companies in adopting international standards, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and Privacy Shield.
Opening an EMEA headquarters and an R&D lab based in Europe are the next logical steps in Signifyd’s expansion. The launches are part of a year marked by rapid growth for Signifyd. The company also doubled its number of customers and protected more orders in Europe, shipped by more merchants, than ever before.
The company’s growth and global push were recognized by Frost & Sullivan, which named Signifyd its Growth Excellence Leadership award winner. The company was also recognized by Deloitte, whose analysis placed Signifyd in the top 4 percent of its 2018 North America Technology Fast 500, and by CB Insights, which named Signifyd a category leader in its FinTech 250 this year.
Now Signifyd is looking to make a bigger mark on a larger, global stage.
Photo courtesy of River House
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