Andrew Paradise, CEO and founder of Skillz, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference on Oct. 18, 2021, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Skillz, a mobile gaming company, is moving its headquarters from San Francisco to Las Vegas.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Skillz, a mobile gaming company headquartered in San Francisco for the past decade, announced its relocation to Las Vegas this week — continuing the trend of tech companies either reducing office space or relocating altogether.
The news of Skillz’s departure from San Francisco was first reported Tuesday by Casino.org, which reports that the company is moving into a 36,000-square-foot space previously owned by famed Australian photographer Peter Lik.
While the reason the company is jumping ship to Sin City is unclear, Skillz founder and CEO Andrew Paradise said in a statement to Casino.org that the state of Nevada has provided the company “full support.” A company representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from SFGATE.
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“It just became the obvious place, both because of the history of real money gaming here and then, also, how many employees are already here and its proximity to our other offices, which are in California,” Paradise told the Las Vegas Sun.
The company’s core service allows mobile game developers for iOS and Android to integrate multiplayer features and cash tournaments into their products. Founded in 2012 in San Francisco, the company has snagged major funding rounds from both Silicon Valley investors and sports executives looking to enter the esports world. Among the sports investors who have bet on Skillz are New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry. In 2020, Skillz went public through a deal with the same company that took gambling giant DraftKings public, and it received a $3.5 billion valuation.
Downtown San Francisco’s corporate real estate has been hit hard by the outsized influence of remote work, to the point that Big Tech’s most prominent chief executives are pushing hard to bring workers back in person. But the move also makes sense for the company: Esports is big business in Las Vegas, where the Luxor has an entire arena dedicated to esports and sports betting has slowly grown to encompass the likes of League of Legends and Overwatch.
Skillz will maintain an office in San Mateo, in addition to offices in Los Angeles, Seattle and Vancouver, according to Casino.org.
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