American digital agency Atlarge has moved to the SpacePortX offices in the Northern Quarter.
It’s the third move in so many years for the company, which said it wanted to have more of an open-plan working environment.
Arriving with much publicity back in 2013, Prolific North asked CEO and founder, Anand Pallegar, why had things been so quiet?
Anand Pallegar
“When we first set up, we thought the office would be there to attract clients, but we found fairly quickly that Manchester is pretty saturated with digital agencies and the product fees over there don’t compare, because you can sell bigger projects in the States.”
So, instead America has remained as its client-facing operation, with Manchester becoming more of a software base.
“What Manchester offers is a deep pool of engineering talent and that’s why it’s important.”
Pallegar added that the student population and the fact that young engineers had “early exposure” to national and international clients made the city stand out, because in America that kind of experience wouldn’t be found “outside the big conurbations, like New York”.
There are currently five staff, including part-time working for Atlarge in the city, but Pallegar said they were recruiting. Returning to the implication of “why so quiet”:
“We’re not going anywhere and you will hear a lot more from us.”
