Egnyte, the Valley firm specialising in an enterprise file-sharing platform, has expanded in Europe, opening a London HQ. This will compliment its existing Amsterdam data center and design office in Poland. It aims to hire 100 new staff in London over the next 5 years.
The company says there is growing customer demand for enterprise-grade file sharing which also addresses data security concerns. It says that recent revelations about PRISM and other widespread data breaches is driving European-based companies to look at higher-security cloud solutions. Many European businesses are reluctant to entrust their data to a US-based data center, hence Egnyte’s data center in Amsterdam.
Its regional European revenues are expected to account for 20% of Egnyte’s global revenues by the end of 2014.
Egnyte has hired Mark Rattley as vice president and general manager for Egnyte Europe. Rattley most recently worked at EMC as vice president of sales for EMEA.
Customers in Europe includes Bowmer and Kirkland, Inter-Ikea, M&C Saatchi, Made.com, Mothercare and Tereos. It also has partnerships with UK-based software security firm Sophos and SafeGuard Enterprise.
Egnyte has a hybrid file-sharing model. In other words, the people inside a business can access a file from anywhere whether it’s in the cloud or behind a secure firewall.
Vineet Jain, CEO of Egnyte said: “You don’t want the next generation of your chip design on a Dropbox folder in China. But Dropbox doesn’t have to lose for Egnyte to win. We’re different.”
He said the company’s expansion to London, “the most vibrant tech hub in Europe” is being driven by their customers. “I looked at Dublin, Benelux and UK but we had a natural affinity with the UK,” he added.