A digital technology firm based in the United Kingdom will establish its United States presence in Tampa.
Information technology and digital staffing firm iO Associates plans to create 40 jobs in a downtown Tampa office, its first national office location. The Tampa Bay Economic Development Council announced the new site on Thursday.
“We are thrilled to be expanding into the U.S. cloud technology space and to be introducing something new to the Tampa staffing market,” iO Associates Managing Director Mark Lloyd said in the release. He will lead the Tampa office launch.
Tampa domestically competes with other major cities such as Charlotte and Nashville for corporate relocations or expansions. An international technology firm selecting Tampa for its U.S. home base signals to other companies that Tampa could have the workforce and business activity to support them.
iO Associates is part of Precision Resource Group, headquartered in southwest England, Bristol.
The new office is located at the Wells Fargo Center on Ashley Drive in downtown Tampa, according to the company's website.
In addition to the announcement of the Tampa office, iO Associates said it will partner with Jeff Fudge, owner of meetup groups Tampa Bay Azure and Tampa Bay Amazon Web Services. iO Associates is known for its technical meetups, which have flourished under quarantine and attract 300 attendees in the U.K., the release said. Details of the partnership were not revealed.
Services introduced in Tampa will include recruiting permanent and contract talent across AWS, Microsoft Azure and the Google Cloud Platform.
Tampa recently shined in a tech talent report on its millennial growth in the city, landing at the eighth best in the nation for "large tech talent markets," totaling over 50,000 in the labor pool.
iO Associates' announcement follows the news of Incofilt, a Colombia-based manufacturer of industrial filters, which announced earlier this week it has chosen Tampa to launch its first U.S. operations as Delasierra Filters Technology.
Incofilt signed a lease to operate out of coworking space Regus in Corporate Center One, located at 2202 N. Westshore Blvd. Delasierra will start its operations with a team of commercial advisers and plans to hire 10 support engineers in its first year. The company will initially invest $1.5 million, according to the EDC.
“Tampa provides all of the business advantages we need from a strategic and logistical point of view, but the supportive business environment we found here was an added benefit,” said Jose Luis Sierra, Incofilt director of engineering, in the release.
