A cybersecurity startup born out of Alphabet's moonshot factory has picked Chicago to grow its engineering operations, and expects its Windy City outpost to be its largest office outside of Silicon Valley.
Chronicle announced last month that it's opening a Chicago office inside Alphabet's Fulton Market building, which houses Google's Chicago office. The office is led by James Megquier, a Chicago native who has spent over a decade in various software engineering roles at Google. Will Robinson, the former head of Google Chicago, is Chronicle's CTO.
Chronicle was founded a year and a half ago out of Alphabet's X moonshot factory (previously called Google X). The company officially unveiled its first product, called Backstory, in March. Chronicle's CEO Stephen Gillett likened Backstory to Google Photos, allowing companies to quickly search and analyze huge amounts of data.
Chronicle chose Chicago for three main reasons, Megquier said in an interview: access to talent, a growing tech scene, and proximity to major corporations that have cybersecurity needs.
"In Chicago, things are just growing and growing."
"We’ve got a great tech scene here in Chicago," Megquier said. "Silicon Valley is really saturated at this point with its talent. In Chicago, things are just growing and growing."
Megquier declined to say how many people Chronicle's Chicago office plans to hold, but he described the company as a "rapidly growing startup" that's looking to hire across a range of engineering roles.
"We see cybersecurity as the computer science problem of a generation," he said. "This is a problem that’s unsolved ... We believe we can bring a really unique perspective and value (to the industry) and are interested in solving it."
Chronicle also has satellite offices North Carolina, Colorado and Málaga, Spain.
Access to customers is a big reason for the growth in Chicago, Megquier explained. With the diverse cluster of industries in Chicago and the midwest in general---from banking, healthcare, insurance, retail and beyond---Chronicle is able to shop its services to a wide swath of the Fortune 500.
"Cybersecurity hits everybody across a range of industries," Megquier said. "We want to be out where these customers are so we can get to know them, feel their pain and support their businesses directly."
Chronicle currently lists six open Chicago jobs on its careers page.
