Globant opens new Uruguay HQ, announces US$60 milion investment

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Globant, the Argentine unicorn active in IT and Software Development, announced on Monday (12) an investment of US$60 million and the hiring of more than 350 professionals by the end of 2021, during the opening of its new Montevideo branch headquarters.

The company is one of the “big three” tech disruptors founded in Argentina and has expanded rapidly into Latin America and worldwide; the other two are Mercado Libre and Despegar.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Uruguay

“We bet on talent, that’s why we settled in Uruguay,” Globant co-founder Guibert Englebienne explained during the ceremony, which was attended by Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou, and Vice President Beatriz Argimón, as well as other high-ranking officials.

“The challenging attitude of Uruguayans and their successful work in artificial intelligence stand out. They trust that the public-private cooperation will make the country grow in the world,” the company said.

Globant CEO Martín Migoya said on Twitter: “Uruguay was the first country outside of Argentina where we landed. 10 years later, and with 800 professionals, we will continue betting on talent. We will hire more than 350 Globers by the end of 2021, and we will double our team in the next three years.”

The new Globant offices are located in Montevideo’s World Trade Center Free Zone. In the brand-new 2,700-square-meter headquarters, there are ample work and recreation spaces that allow workers to develop creativity.

Both Migoya and Englebienne explained that the company’s philosophy is to create a place where people would like to work, keeping in mind that people spend most of their day there. They consider it a place where friendships are forged, collaborated, and innovated. This vision made them experiment with different alternatives.

Globant views itself as a digitally native company whose main mission is to help organizations reinvent themselves to create a path to the future and unleash their potential, combining innovation, design, and engineering to reach a large scale.

For the Uruguay project, “we worked with an architectural model similar to the one used in one of the offices in Colombia, which was recognized among the 10 best offices in the world. It has comfortable workspaces, which are rotating, places to store belongings, areas created to trigger ideas, including some for recreation, with the ultimate goal that everyone who works there wants to come back the next day to continue creating,” the business leaders said.

Migoya insisted he was “more convinced than ever that the country has excellent human qualities and various tools to promote growth plans in the region.” He also believes that “this new state-of-the-art workspace redefines traditional office concepts” and “will allow us to continue with a sustained expansion plan for the coming years.”

The company pointed out that the ”Montevideo WTC corporate office space will be the first to be inaugurated with the new post-covid-19 New Normal concept, a type of work designed for new circumstances and work methodologies.“

The office ”represents a community center for workgroups, a place to meet with employees and clients and interact both professionally and socially. With an avant-garde design, the new office typology offers new and different formats of work, such as work tables, cowork-type lounge areas adjustable in height and mobiles, soundproof chairs, phone booths, and a multiplicity of meeting and training rooms,” Englebienne added.

Technological giant Globant organizes the Digital Disruptors Awards, which recognize those who lead disruptive processes of digital transformation in three main pillars: people, planet, and prosperity.

Founded in Buenos Aires with digital DNA by engineers Martín Migoya, Guibert Englebienne, Martín Umaran, and Néstor Nocetti, Globant emerged with the idea of solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technologies.

The company’s first major turnaround was about three years after its founding when it became Google‘s external provider. The strategic project relationship with Google has reinforced the company’s culture.

Unlike the large Indian technology companies that do application support and software maintenance services, Globant focused on services related to the user experience. Thus, the company gained more strength and visibility.

After going public, it accelerated the number of acquisitions (17) and expanded to other countries: United Kingdom, Colombia, Uruguay, United States, Peru, India, Mexico, Chile, and others. Recently, Brazil and Spain are among the countries receiving the most investments from the big tech.

Still, there are also expansion plans that target especially Australia, Canada, Central America and the Caribbean.

Globant operates mainly in the finance segments (banks and insurance companies), retail, health, institutions, and organizations that speak directly to the consumer and develops B2B2C services and products.

With more than 16,000 employees, Globant has customers such as Rockwell Automation, Electronic Arts, Santander, American Express, and Coca-Cola. In Brazil, the company a list of “must-have accounts” to work with.

Founded in Argentina, the firm is currently headquartered in Luxembourg and principally serves clients in the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2020, the company generated revenues of $814.1 million and employed 16,251 people.

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