Meanwhile as the tech scene is picking up in Norway, thanks to new coworking spaces and investors, Oslo-based Opera Software is building a bigger presence in Silicon Valley by tripling office space and doubling its workforce.
Part of this new growth is comping through a new acquisition of Skyfire, a movie cloud-based solutions provider, that Opera has thrown under Opera Mediaworks, their new mobile advertising subsidiary.
“Silicon Valley has become one of Opera’s most strategic locations to do business and grow our talent base,” says Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “We realize the importance and influence Silicon Valley has on how we power the global mobile ecosystem, including how we help consumers to discover content, advertisers to reach the audience they are looking for, publishers to generate revenue and operators to provide a faster and better network experience. We will continue our expansion in this region by hiring people in all areas and generating more revenue than ever.”
Opera has been busy in California. In their press release they point to a number of milestones including the acquisition of Skyfire, launching Coast, a new browser for the iPad, and introduced the new Webkit-based browsers for smartphones and desktops.
This year the company doubled headcount to 200 employees in California, and is expected to reach 300 total in 2014.
While much of this growth has come through U.S.-based acquisitions, you have to be a little bummed out that Opera is putting more resources into the States. Thanks to the booming oil sector, only in Norway could wages for skilled engineers be higher than in Silicon Valley…
