Social networking company Reddit announced Monday it's opening its first Midwest office in Chicago.
Reddit said it plans to have a team of nine employees and a dedicated office in Chicago by the end of the year. The company also announced Monday that is has hired advertising veteran Rob Sprungman to lead the Chicago team. Sprungman helped open the first Midwest sales office for Electronic Arts and also led the Midwest sales team at AdMob, which was acquired by Google.
Reddit's Chicago office will be the company's first physical presence outside of the coasts. Reddit is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Los Angeles and New York City.
The company said it wanted to open an office in Chicago to more closely connect with brands as it grows its advertising business.
"...Reddit’s new office isn’t just an investment in the region of the Midwest; it’s also an investment in the industries of the Midwest," the company wrote in a blog post. "For example, the past year of brand partnerships growth at Reddit has demonstrated lots of potential for growth with the automotive industry and consumer packaged goods companies."
Reddit said its ads business has more than doubled year-over-year, and revenue has grown 5 times over the last three years.
Reddit's new office comes as several Silicon Valley tech giants have made moves in recent years to open spaces in Chicago. Most notably, Google has about 800 Chicago employees in its Fulton Market building, and it is rumored to be eying an additional facility in Chicago that could hire thousands of new workers.
Facebook is adding three floors and around 100,000 additional square feet to its office on Wacker Drive. The new space could hold up to 500 extra employees. Facebook said a year ago that it had around 80 Chicago employees. Other notable tech companies like Twitter, Pinterest, Yelp, Glassdoor, Pandora, Buzzfeed and even Snapchat have offices in Chicago.
