Expansion sees Tableau move to new Dublin offices

Seattle-headquartered company says new offices will have capacity for 100 employees

“We make it easy for people to see and understand data. We make drag and drop software products that anyone can use. They are applicable to all professions, third-level institutions and companies of all sizes from Google to Facebook to UCD and Bank of Ireland,” said Tableau chief executive and co-founder Christian Chabot

US technology company Tableau Software is to expand its European operations in Dublin with a move to new offices at The Oval on Dublin's Shelbourne Road.

The Seattle-headquartered company, which established its Irish operations two years ago, said the new offices would have capacity for 100 employees.

The company currently has 33 staff in Dublin and is currently hiring for 16 positions. The jobs include technical support, engineering support managers and technical account managers.

Tableau, which pioneered the concept of visual analytics in 2003, helps people to quickly visualise and understand data and to share information.

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"We make it easy for people to see and understand data. We make drag and drop software products that anyone can use. They are applicable to all professions, third-level institutions and companies of all sizes from Google to Facebook to UCD and Bank of Ireland," said Tableau chief executive and co-founder Christian Chabot.

The company has grown its customers by 60 per cent since 2013, and now has more than 5,000 customer in EMEA including BNP Paribas, the NHS, Barclays Bank, Tesco and Unilever.

Bank of Ireland, UCD, TCD, Vodafone, Irish Life, Trend Micro are among the firm’s Irish customers.

He said the company was making a large investment in Europe on the back of huge growth over the last few years.“We brought in $413 million in revenues in 2014. We’ve been growing by over 75 per cent per year for the last five years.”

The company posted revenues of $13 million in 2008, and by 2012 has increased them to more than $128 million on the back of very little venture capital funding.

“We took our first round of funding in at the end of 2004. We had a term sheet for $20 million but we only took $5 million. We did one more raise four years later. That time we had a term sheet for $30 million. We took $10 million but never used it. It’s still in our bank account to this day. It’s good to have it as we don’t want to run the business on a knife edge,” Mr Chabot said.

Mr Chabot said data skills, like social networking skills, were becoming a basic skill of the 21st century.

“From an R&D perspective we are finding that the use of data is becoming a job skill more and more.

“Five years from today if people show up to a job and don’t know how to use and analyse data it would be like showing up to a job today and not knowing how to use [Microsoft] Word”.

Prior to founding Tableau, Mr Chabot co-founded BeeLine Software, a pioneer of next-generation mapping technology.

Tableau has more than 2,000 employees worldwide in cities including Paris, London, Frankfurt, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Shanghai. In 2013 it floated on the New York Stock Exchange.