General Business Updates and News

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Juice Mobile opening an office in Kitchener
February 20, 2015 | Terry Pender | The Record | LINK

KITCHENER — A Toronto-based mobile advertising and technology company is setting up an office in downtown Kitchener to help it recruit software developers from local startups and the University of Waterloo.

Juice Mobile has already hired a director of product marketing for the office in the Breithaupt Block and is actively recruiting more developers with expertise in mobile, said Roshni Wijayashina, the firm's senior director of marketing.

"We are looking to hire more and more people there," Wijayashina said. "We haven't set a number. That is actually dynamic."

Specifically, the company wants developers with expertise in Django, Python, Android and C++.

"We are looking for people with a passion for mobile to work with us," Wijayashina said.

The company is setting up the office in Kitchener because of the area's reputation as a hub for talent.

"We realize that top-class companies like Google are going there and so we realize that for us to be able to attract talent, which is a key component of our strategy, it is important for us to be there," Wijayashina said.

With offices in Toronto, New York and Los Angeles, the company has more than doubled in size to more than 50 employees in the past year.

The company's latest product, Nectar, is an advertising technology platform that connects buyers and sellers of media ads with brands and publishers that have the ad space.

On behalf of a client, an ad agency feeds in all of the requirements for the campaign — geographic regions, start and end dates, target audience and the type of creative content the client has.

Then Nectar surfs what Juice calls its partnered premium publishers where your campaign could potentially run on, Wijayashina said. "You are then able to select these publishers to bid on your business."

This reverses the traditional model in which advertisers are bidding on space. Once publishers buy an ad, Nectar tracks where and when it is published.

"We are hoping to work really closely with the universities to drive young talent into this company," Wijayashina said.

"We are really looking forward to building out our team in Waterloo (Region)."