Shopify raises its profile in Waterloo with larger office, plans to hire

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WATERLOO, Ont. – Canadian e-commerce startup Shopify Inc. is raising its profile in the hotbed of the country’s technology sector with plans for a larger office in Waterloo, Ont.

The Ottawa-based company will announce today it’s making a significant expansion in the region as part of an effort to attract more talent from local universities and other tech companies.

Shopify (TSX:SH) built its business on helping other companies launch their own web stores using its software platforms.

This year, Shopify has been growing in leaps and bounds after listing on the public markets in May.

This month alone, it has secured a new partnership with Amazon for its web store merchants and reached an agreement with Twitter that allows retailers to post one-click purchase buttons on the social media platform.

The company, which has seen its market value soar to about US$2.6 billion, already has offices in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.

In Waterloo, Shopify runs a small operation of about 20 employees from a facility that mainly houses local startups.

Moving to a different office will give it enough space to accommodate up to 300 employees who will be mostly focused on Shopify Plus, its higher-tiered service for heavy volume merchants, said company spokeswoman Janet Park.

Shopify has about 780 employees across its existing Canadian operations.

Other large companies have been ramping up their presence in the Waterloo region in the wake of widespread layoffs at smartphone company BlackBerry (TSX:BB) over the past few years.

TD Bank (TSX:TD) said Wednesday it would beef up its local staff by adding more than 120 jobs over the next year dedicated to improving digital platforms for its clients.

Earlier this month, news and data company Thomson Reuters announced plans to open a research space in Waterloo where it would experiment with new ways to deliver information to its customers.