Shopee opens new HQ building at Science Park to house up to 3,000 staff

SINGAPORE-based e-commerce firm Shopee has opened its new headquarters at Science Park as it looks to hire more talent and strengthen its presence across South-east Asia and Taiwan.

The new building has an office space of 244,000 square feet across six floors and is expected to house up to 3,000 employees. Shopee, a unit of New York-listed Sea, currently employs more than 1,000 staff.

In addition to workspaces and a cafeteria, the building houses a 3,000 square feet gymnasium, a mini arcade and a dinner catering service. Shopee was previously located at Ascent in Science Park, with part of the team working out of Sea's headquarters at Galaxis in one-north.

Since its founding four years ago, Shopee has rapidly risen to become one of the top players in the region. It is currently present in seven markets.

Between the fourth quarter of 2015 and the fourth quarter of 2018, the e-commerce firm's gross merchandise value (a measurement of total sales transaction on the platform) increased by over 80 times.

The company plans to hire more tech talent as it develops capabilities in areas such as data science.

Forrest Li, chief executive and founder of Sea, said: "As we grow, we will continue to offer exciting new roles to Singaporeans. For instance, our data science teams are rapidly growing their capabilities - from basic machine learning to complex products like chatbots."

Shopee's chief commercial officer Zhou Junjie said that expanding the tech talent pipeline and nurturing an entrepreneurial ecosystem for sellers and small and medium-sized enterprises will continue to be areas of focus for the company.

"As the e-commerce landscape evolves, Shopee will continue to invest ahead of demand and build more advanced capabilities to better serve our users," he said.