Xanadu on a winner
Xanadu Consultancy has grown from just eight employees in 2011 to 60, and will double to 120 over the next while. To allow for future growth, Xanadu has just moved into 6,000 sq ft of quality offices in Black-pool Retail and Office Park’s River House, where there’s scope for further expansion.
Xanadu was set up three years ago by CEO Mark Brosnan, as a support hub for companies in the online gaming industry, which is worth an estimated €44bn a year, and growing. The Irish market is worth up to €2bn pa.
Key to Xanadu’s rapid take-off was getting an early contract with North American-established Match-book.com, one of the world’s largest betting exchanges, which processes 20m real-time transactions a day; it handled $3.7bn in betting volume in 2013.
“Our initial remit was to provide operational support only; but, for us, it was a leg in the door and since then we have successfully tendered for, and won, the contracts to provide a full range of solutions for the company,” says chief operations manager, Cian Nugent. Xanadu’s management has a combined 30 years’ experience in IT and spotted an opportunity to deliver lower-cost solutions than the more traditional centres of London, Dublin, and further afield. Teams were scaled up to build a cross-disciplinary (IT, finance, compliance/fraud management) niche with industry-leading skills in Java development, big data and cloud computing. Recent hires also enable the firm to cover marketing, interactive design, event management and video production.
Xanadu’s R&D has seen an academia-industry collaboration agreement (CNGL) involving researchers at four universities: TCD, DCU, UCD and UL. CNGL recently secured €13.5m in government funding, through Science Foundation Ireland. And, in collaboration with UCC, it is supporting two masters-degree research papers, one on the feasibility of an international gaming-services centre in Ireland, the other on the viability of betting exchanges in emerging markets.
Xanadu has targeted other digital and gaming industries, and has announced 40 new positions over the next 18 months, primarily in data analytics. The company had been in Sandquay House, Lower John Street, and “we started to hit capacity again in mid-2013 and, as a result, we have just completed a move to new offices,” says Mr Nugent.
It negotiated 6,000 sq ft at River House, vacated by DataTech, which has relocated, via Margaret Kelleher of Lisney, and further expansion there is anticipated. The building was developed by the Shipton Group, and other occupiers include Quintas, Finbarr Gannon & Co, Pitsman Training, Westbourne IT solutions and Chartered Life.
Quoted rent was €14 psf, for fully finished offices, and it’s likely a deal was agreed closer to €10 psf.
Details: Lisney, 021-4275079
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