London-headquartered interactive tech firm Smartzer has announced plans to invest in a new Northern Ireland office with 16 tech staff.
Digital video-tagging tech firm Smartzer's service transforms videos into interactive shopping experiences, allowing consumers to click items in a video to get information on them and purchase them without leaving the website or app that the video is embedded in. The "shoppable video experience" is designed to integrate with social media and also collects data analytics on consumer engagement.
The company was founded in London and has worked with companies in the UK, France, US, Canada, Germany, and Italy, partnering with big-name brands such as Marks & Spencer and Estee Lauder. Shoppable videos have now been successfully used with several major brands on Instagram and Facebook.
Smartzer has now announced that it's launching a new Belfast office to take advantage of the high quality of NI IT graduates. Company Founder and CEO Karoline Gross commented on the move: "Our new office in Belfast will play a key role in contributing to the company’s success. The high standard of talent within the Northern Ireland ICT sector, along with the quality of students graduating from NI universities attracted us to establishing a Smartzer presence here."
The new office will grow to 16 staff over the next two years, with the Belfast office responsible for developing and launching a new Software as a Service model product that will allow brands to integrate shoppable video services seamlessly across Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
New jobs offered by Smartzer are expected to include software development, design, software engineering, and quality assurance roles with an average salary of £33,500. Invest NI has offered the firm £80,000 to create the new jobs, which the firm expects to take around 2 years to fully fill.
Source: Written based on press release
