When a foreign company decides to enter the U.S. market, New York and San Francisco are typically the cities chosen as its North American headquarters. What about Athens, Georgia? There’s no doubt that the home of the Dawgs is one of the best college towns in the country with a world class music scene to boot. But, most don’t think of it as a center for Foreign Direct Investment. However, Italian startup Docebo decided to break the mold by making the city their North American headquarters in 2013. We recently chatted with Docebo COO, Alessio Artuffo to find out more about his company and why he chose the Classic City.
The story of Athens and Artuffo began in 2009 when he moved to the US at age 28 and joined another Italian firm that had originally chosen Duluth for its corporate headquarters. “After about 37 nights of my stay in Duluth, and after visiting Athens and its charm on a few occasions, I was sure that Athens had the potential to become a growing hub and not so sure about the same in Duluth,” recalls Artuffo. “As I continued my professional development and joined Docebo in 2012, Athens was still in my heart. It was an easy choice to make it the starting point for our long term North America strategy.”
Founded by Italian entrepreneur Claudio Erba, “Docebo is a SaaS Learning Management System (LMS) that has been in the industry since 2005,” explains Artuffo. “Docebo has about 900 customers, located across 80 countries and is available in 32 languages. Docebo is a true SaaS company with operations in the U.S and EMEA. Recently backed by growth equity firm Klass Capital, the company’s mission is to become the leader in the B2B SaaS LMS market.”
Docebo enables mid to large sized businesses to distribute formal knowledge and training to employees, clients, partners, and members. “We help businesses enhance the skills and competencies among their user base, increasing human capital retention and development,” says Artuffo. “The worldwide market for self-paced e-learning reached $35.6 billion in 2011. The five-year compound annual growth rate is estimated at around 7.6%, so revenues should reach some $51.5 billion by 2016.”
Docebo has capitalized on the large opportunities in the e-learning industry. Some of their current clients are Thomson Reuters, Unity 3d, Pepperidge Farms just to name a few. “The company’s growth, particularly vibrant in the North American region, is currently averaging 50% per year with Q1 2015 at about 100% growth. Docebo is accelerating its growth thanks to differentiating factors like a unique approach to UX design, a proprietary app store, and highly innovative product features.”
Alessio Artuffo, COO of Docebo
Given that Alessio originally hails from beautiful Genoa, Italy, everybody asks him, ‘why Athens?’ He usually responds, ‘why not?’ “Athens is currently at the heart of our fastest growing market, North America,” he asserts. “It is from Athens that we have been able to close contracts with leaders among the Fortune 1000 companies. It is also from here that we assist and support hundreds of large corporations in the Americas, from Canada, through the U.S., to Peru and Brazil.”
Spurred by rapid growth and their recent acquisition of $3 million in funding, Docebo is hiring. “Globally, as of now, we have 10 positions open,” says Artuffo. “They range anywhere between Sales and Marketing to Development and Project Management. Every employee is granted an international trip to our Milan and Dubai offices and our team is exposed to a mix of cultural approaches that is fairly unique compared to your typical US based startup.”
Follow Docebo on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Docebo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@docebo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/docebo-srl
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/doceboelearning/
