BlueKite.com, a San Francisco-based software maker for wireless Internet access, is moving its Orange County engineering and design center to a larger facility in Irvine with plans to grow local employment from 40 now to around 200 in a year’s time.
BlueKite.com has signed a five-year lease for 22,868 square feet in Irvine’s Sprint PCS building near John Wayne Airport. The new lease is worth about $4 million. Howard Rosenfield, BlueKite’s senior marketing director, calls it a significant commitment for a company that considers itself “still essentially a start-up.” BlueKite was founded in 1998.
The move will add more than 17,000 square feet to BlueKite’s OC operations. The company plans to move from its 5,000-square-foot Huntington Beach office by October. The company needs the new office space to support its growth, Rosenfield said.
BlueKite plans to nearly triple its OC staff to 110 people by the second quarter of next year and nearly double it from there by late 2001.
The move to the same 11-story building that serves as the local home to Sprint PCS Group, the wireless arm of Sprint Corp., is “coincidental, but fitting,” Rosenfield said. In August, Sprint PCS selected BlueKite’s software in a bid to boost the performance of wireless Internet access on its U.S.-based wireless network. Proximity to John Wayne Airport and area hotels were factors in BlueKite’s selection of the Irvine site, Rosenfield said.
BlueKite develops software that allows for Web access on wireless phones and portable computing devices. Last month, the privately held company received $36 million in funding from Texas Pacific Group, Credit Suisse First Boston, Robertson Stephens’ Bayview 2000 Fund and other investors.
BlueKite is part of a growing contingent of wireless technology companies in Orange County. Others include Irvine-based Powerwave Technologies, Inc., a maker of wireless communications amplifiers, and Intersil Corp., a maker of chips and other electronics used in wireless computer networks. Intersil recently moved to Irvine from Palm Bay, Fla. n
