Pendo Announces Asia-Pacific Expansion

Fueled by Strong Revenue Growth, Pendo Opens Offices in Japan and Australia

Pendo, a platform that helps companies accelerate digital product adoption among customers and employees, announced its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region, beginning with offices in Tokyo and Sydney. Pendo plans to employ more than 20 people in Asia over the next two years, in roles spanning sales, marketing, customer success and technical support.

“Japan and Australia have robust technology ecosystems, aggressive digital transformation plans and impressive talent pools, all of which help make the case for Pendo’s expansion into this region,” said Todd Olson, CEO and co-founder of Pendo. “We are excited to continue to champion the product manager as we grow across Asia.”

Leading Pendo Japan is Country Manager Kiyo Takayama, who most recently served as vice president of channel sales, public sector and finance sales at Box Japan. Takayama brings over 23 years of enterprise software experience to Pendo, helping global brands like Adobe (Omniture), Cloudera and Box drive demand and interest in Japan.

Pendo’s entry into the market comes at a critical time. Gartner projects the rate of cloud spending in Japan to rise from 3.0% in 2019 to 4.4% in 2022, helping to overcome a lag in cloud adoption compared to other parts of the world. Japanese companies are also accelerating automation to help offset a projected talent shortage. A study by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) recommends Japanese companies deploy new technologies to drive innovation and efficiency and to introduce new business models, which will help fuel the 2.5-fold increase in productivity growth needed to maintain its existing GDP growth rate.

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With its combination of product analytics, in-app guidance and product planning and feedback tools, Pendo helps companies through this transformation. Product teams use Pendo to automate user onboarding, education and support, to inform and launch new products and features, to measure user sentiment and to accelerate software usage and adoption, all without requiring engineering resources.

“The Japanese IT market is one of the most advanced in the world. However, the usage rate of the cloud is still not high, and there is room for significant growth in software usability,” said Takayama. “I’m excited to help Japanese companies improve adoption of their software products, increasing employee productivity and customer satisfaction.”

Pendo will name a country manager for Australia in February 2021, with additional hiring in that region to follow. Gartner predicts enterprise IT spending in the country to grow 3.6% in 2021, providing fertile ground for Pendo to grow.

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Playing a role in Pendo’s expansion to Asia-Pacific is Geodesic Capital, which joined the company’s Series D funding round in 2018. With offices in Tokyo and the Bay Area, Geodesic has helped companies like Airbnb, Looker, Uber, UiPath, Databricks and ThoughtSpot successfully enter Asian markets.

“As companies throughout APAC both build and use more online apps and services as part of their digital transformations, Pendo will be a key technology that will help improve user experience and ensure that digital initiatives succeed,” said Ashvin Bachireddy, a founding partner at Geodesic Capital.

Today’s announcement comes after several quarters of higher-than-projected revenues for Pendo, driven by an increase in bookings from traditional businesses. Pendo now counts more than 1,600 customers, including some of the world’s largest retailers, hospitality companies, banks and educational institutions. The company employs nearly 450 people, with offices in Raleigh, New York, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Herzliya, Israel, and Sheffield, UK.

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