Electric scooter company Veo said it plans to open a new headquarters in Santa Monica, California, where it says it will add hundreds of employees.
Chicago-based Veo was founded in 2017 and now operates in more than 30 U.S. cities, including Santa Monica, where it began operating in July and where it said it operates more than 700 vehicles.
The Santa Monica office, Veo said, is located on the Third Street Promenade and "will help facilitate Veo's continued growth along the West Coast." The company will maintain its headquarters in Chicago.
"When we began operating in Santa Monica, the birthplace of shared mobility, we were committed to developing a long-term, collaborative partnership with the city focused on responsible business practices," said Veo CEO Candice Xie in a statement. "As we expand in the western half of the U.S., Santa Monica was the clear choice to establish our second headquarters given the city's role as a micromobility model for cities globally."
Veo said it currently has about 200 employees and added that it plans to expand its workforce by another 300 people throughout 2022, "most of whom will be in the Santa Monica area."
Veo won't be alone in Santa Monica. Bird Global Inc. also calls Santa Monica home, although Bird ran into trouble in its own hometown. This past summer, Bird scooters got the boot from Santa Monica streets. Bird went public in November, merging with a Dallas-based blank-check company.
In July, Veo announced it had raised $16 million in a round led by Autotech Ventures, a Silicon Valley VC firm that has also invested in Lyft and SpotHero. UP.Partners, FJ Labs and Interplay Ventures also participated.
