A New York tech “unicorn” that’s in the social media marketing business has opened an office in Chicago as it works to better serve its local clients.
Sprinklr, founded in 2009, makes a platform that allows companies to interact with, provide customer care and advertise to consumers across all of their social media channels, like Twitter and Facebook, as well as review sites, blogs and messaging platforms.
Its Chicago office, which formally opened in November at 125 S. Clark St. in the National Building, currently houses just 25 of the company’s 1,800 employees. But this week, Sprinklr founder and CEO Ragy Thomas said that the company plans to grow its local headcount.
Across the organization, Sprinklr plans to hire 1,000 people, many of which will be hired locally. Most of the roles in Chicago are in Sprinklr’s sales department.
“We’re experiencing significant demand for our products and our No. 1 thing to do is hire amazing people,” said Thomas, who was Epsilon’s president of interactive services before founding Sprinklr.
Sprinklr chose to open the Chicago office because it wants to be close to some of its largest clients, including locally-based McDonald’s, Hyatt Hotels and Allstate. Elsewhere, Sprinklr counts Microsoft and Amazon as customers.
Opening the Chicago office comes as Sprinklr is expanding broadly across the globe. Chicago is Sprinklr’s 25th location and ninth in the U.S. This week, the company also announced it is opening offices in Mexico City as it targets new clients in the country, as well as throughout Central America.
To date, the company has raised nearly $240 million in venture capital funding. Sprinklr last raised VC in 2016, at which point the company was valued at $1.8 billion. Thomas declined to comment on whether Sprinklr is close to being profitable or is planning to exit at some point.
“We’ve had unprecedented growth,” Thomas said. “Our growth is able to fund our expansion.”
