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Snapchat trebles its presence in the capital ahead of IPO and London expansion

US social giant Snap Group, the parent company of Snapchat, has agreed to treble its footprint in the capital after agreeing a deal for new premises in Soho.

The Venice Beach-headquartered company has agreed to take 20,000 sq ft at 77 Shaftesbury Avenue after announcing last month that it would base its international operations out of the capital.

According to Property Week, Snapchat has signed a 10-year lease at the building, which is owned by Dolford Property Holdings, which will complement its presence at nearby 7-11 Lexington Street where it currently leases 13,000 sq ft.

The move caps a year of rapid growth for the Silicon Valley tech firm in the capital, where it has grown headcount in its London office from just 6 staff to 75 in a little over 12 months.

Its announcement earlier in the year that it was to establish its international headquarters in the capital surprised analysts and was viewed as an attempt to avoid recent controversies at Google and Apple, which have both faced criticism for setting up offices in countries with little to no corporation tax obligations.

Instead, Snap has said it will book all advertising revenues for countries in which it does not have a regional office in London and will pay UK corporation tax on those earnings.

At the time,Claire Valoti, General Manager of Snap Group in the UK, commented: “We believe in the UK creative industries. The UK is where our advertising clients are, where more than 10m daily Snapchatters are, and where we’ve already begun to hire talent.”

Snap is currently preparing for its IPO in the US and announced on Thursday that it was targeting a valuation of between $19.5bn and $22.3bn, a figure which is at the lower end of potential valuations.