Zendesk invests in Europe with dedicated data centre

Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock TD, officially launched Zendesk’s first European data centre in Dublin. Zendesk, the cloud-based customer service software platform, is going beyond US-EU Safe Harbor legislation with this new facility and giving its European-based customers the choice to keep the customer data that Zendesk manages on their behalf within the EU.

Zendesk has more than 7,500 customers in Europe, including Just Giving, GOV.UK, L’Oreal and Glasgow NHS. It enables organisations to offer superior service to its customers across multiple channels — from their website, email and phone to Facebook, Twitter and chat.

This significant infrastructure investment is a result of Zendesk’s plans to increase its scale and global reach after securing $60 million in additional funding in 2012.

Officially launching the data centre, Minister Sherlock said, “Zendesk announced its plans to establish this centre here, with the creation of 30 new jobs, back in October of last year and so I am delighted to be here today to officially welcome Zendesk to Ireland.

‘’Data analytics is an area of massive potential growth and job creation for Ireland and today’s announcement follows on from the recent establishment of CeADAR (Centre for Applied Data Analytics Research), which aims to make Ireland a world leader in this area. Zendesk is a welcome addition to Ireland’s data centre cluster, and I wish the company every success in the future,” Minister Sherlock concluded.

“The new data centre is a significant milestone for Zendesk in Europe,” said Mikkel Svane, Zendesk CEO and founder. “We’re committed to serving our growing number of European customers and addressing their concerns over where their data resides. By opening the centre within their borders, we hope to create a model for the cloud-based software industry.”

Zendesk will not only process and store data in the new European data centre, but also replicate data through an EU-based data backup provider. The new data centre, combined with a development centre that Zendesk opened last year in Dublin, will create more than 30 jobs for skilled IT professionals over the next two years.

Barry O’Dowd, Head of High Growth Business at IDA Ireland, said, “Dublin is increasingly being seen as a centre of technology excellence in Europe and the ideal location for technology companies to extend their operations. We are pleased to see a market-leading company such as Zendesk increase its investment in Ireland and recognise the wealth of talent and skills available here.”

More than 100 million people in 140 countries get their customer service through Zendesk. Along with Dublin, the San Francisco-based company also has offices in London, Copenhagen, Melbourne and Tokyo.