Klipfolio hosted a number of Ottawa companies at its newly-expanded space Wednesday, hosting its first Dashboardpalooza event.
The dashboard developer was able to expand thanks to a fresh round of series-A funding, but its exceptional growth may force the company out of the space before too long.
After securing $6.2 million in its latest round of funding and passing a threshold of 40 employees, Klipfolio outgrew its old digs and expanded into an adjacent space on the second floor of 176 Gloucester street.
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Once the funding was secured, President and CEO Allan Wille says they were able to push the button on expansion.
“It was a six-month process where there was a lot of planning and then all of a sudden, snap, let’s make it happen,” he says.
The open-concept office space features red and black highlights and rows of standing desks encircling the room. At the event, wall-mounted screens displayed Klipfolio’s cloud-based dashboard marketing tools, as gurus explained to guests how the business intelligence comes together.
“We wanted a space that was open and flexible as possible,” Mr. Wille says. “We were able to design the space the way we like working. Everything is open concept, the company doesn’t really have a hierarchy as such. For us, it was really about making a space that works with our culture.”
When Klipfolio began as a startup in 2001 (then called Serence), it operated out of a small room in Carleton’s CTTC building. In 2004, it moved downtown to the same floor its works out of today. As it grew, it took on adjacent room after adjacent room, and now occupies the entire floor.
“We were hiring, last year, close to 20 people. And we were out of space. So we needed to expand here,” Mr. Wille says.
Klipfolio’s growth took off in 2012, when its dashboard product shifted from a Windows-installed application to a cloud-based service. The company grew from 150 customers to over 3,000 over the course of two to three years. This impressive growth has begun to put Klipfolio against the wall, however.
Within a year, Mr. Wille says, the company is likely to grow to 50 employees. The capacity of the current space is around 55, meaning that sooner rather than later, Klipfolio will have to make a bigger move.
“Something is going to have to happen, probably over the next 12-18 months. … The growth might dictate it,” Mr. Wille says. “We’re going to have to start thinking about what’s next.”
Ideally, he says, Klipfolio would stay in the same building. The company likes the downtown location and the space has always been good to them.
“We’ve got a lot of folks that walk to work, bike to work, bus to work. So we think that’s important, we want to be somewhere where it’s accessible.”
Klipfolio’s Dashboardpalooza was a well-attended event with many Ottawa’s movers and shakers checking it out.
Mr. Wille says he sees his company as just one of a burgeoning technology community in the capital.
“I think the tech community in Ottawa is really starting to gel, and get on the map. … We’ve got a lot of stuff to be proud about. And I think there’s evidence growing that it’s working. I think Ottawa’s definitely abuzz.”
