Chewy is coming to Seattle.
The online pet retailer will open a corporate office in the Seattle region by the end of this year and plans to hire several hundred for technology, product and merchandising roles.
“As a hub for innovation, the Seattle region is a great fit for us in terms of depth and breadth of talent,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to GeekWire.
Founded in 2011, Chewy was acquired by PetSmart for $3.35 billion in 2017. It went public in 2019.
The acceleration of e-commerce and increased pet adoption has led to big growth for Chewy amid the pandemic. The company last year reported third quarter sales of $1.78 billion, up 45% year-over-year. It has 17.8 million active customers, up 40%.
Those trends are also fueling Rover, the Seattle-based online pet care service that announced plans this week to go public via a SPAC deal that values the company at $1.3 billion.
Rover’s investor presentation included a slide titled “converging tailwinds” indicating that U.S. pet adoption increased by 11 million or 35% in 2020. And pet owners continue to spend on their dogs and cats — which is good news for companies such as Rover and Chewy.
“Even in times of economic change and belt tightening, people don’t skimp on their pets,” Rover CEO Aaron Easterly said on an investor call Thursday.
Shares of Chewy have surged from $28/share a year ago to nearly $120/share.
Chewy is based in Dania Beach, Fla., near Ft. Lauderdale. It has additional corporate offices in Boston and Minneapolis, as well as several customer centers and fulfillment locations across the country. The company has more than 18,000 total employees.
Chewy is the latest out-of-town tech company to open a satellite office in the Seattle region. Fintech startup Robinhood on Thursday said it also will open a Seattle-based office this year.
It’s not yet clear how the pandemic and shift in remote work will affect Seattle’s engineering outposts. Companies such as Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft — which are among 130-plus companies that have Seattle-area hubs — laid off staff when the pandemic first hit.
