Thrive accelerates North American expansion with new US headquarters and flagship customer Office Depot
Financial Times fastest-growing learning technology company, Thrive, is accelerating its global expansion with a major investment in North America, announcing Office Depot Group as a new flagship customer alongside a growing team and new US headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Thrive, the Financial Times-recognized fast-growing technology company, is significantly expanding its presence across the US and Canada as demand for its AI-powered learning and performance technology continues to grow internationally.
The expansion sees Thrive establish its new US headquarters in Austin, Texas, placing the company at the heart of one of North America's major technology hubs and creating a permanent base from which to support its rapidly growing customer community.
Thrive is also expanding its North American team, with new customer experts joining on the ground in Austin alongside an established and growing presence in Canada spanning Product, Customer Success and Support.
The investment marks an important next step in Thrive's evolution from a fast-growing British scale-up into a global learning technology company, building local teams and infrastructure alongside its expanding international customer and user base.
Office Depot Group joins Thrive
Alongside its expansion, Thrive has announced Office Depot Group as a major new flagship customer in North America, adding significant momentum to its enterprise growth in the region.
One of North America's best-known retail and business services brands, Office Depot Group has entered a long-term partnership with Thrive that will see it support 18,000 users across the organization.
As part of the transformation, Thrive will integrate with Oracle and launch a fully branded Office Depot mobile app, creating a connected learning and knowledge experience that employees can access wherever they work.
Launching in early 2027, Thrive will support Office Depot across a broad range of employee learning and development needs, including essential learning, onboarding, knowledge management, social learning, accreditation and certification tracking.
For a workforce spanning retail, sales, distribution and corporate environments, the new experience will provide a consistent place for employees to access the knowledge, training and support they need throughout their career with the business.
The branded mobile app will be particularly important for making learning and knowledge more accessible to frontline employees, bringing development closer to the point of work.
Sarah Hoxie, EVP & Chief Administrative Officer at Office Depot Group, commented:
“Our Coworkers work across retail stores, distribution centers, and corporate offices, and learning has to meet them where they are. Thrive gives us a single, mobile-first place for training and knowledge that brings development closer to the point of work. We're looking forward to launching with our teams in early 2027.”
The long-term partnership represents a significant commitment between the two organizations and further demonstrates Thrive's ability to support large, complex enterprises – and the scale of the transformations it is increasingly supporting across North America.
Building locally to support customers globally
Thrive is investing in the people and infrastructure needed to provide the same high-touch customer experience locally that has underpinned its rapid growth in the UK and internationally.
New hires in Austin will strengthen Thrive's Customer and Enterprise teams, bringing additional expertise closer to customers and enabling them to operate within their markets and time zones.
Austin will become the center of Thrive's US operation, while its growing Canadian presence includes team members across Product, Customer Success and Support.
Together, the investment creates a stronger end-to-end North American operation, with the expertise to support customers from initial transformation and implementation through to ongoing success, support and product development.
Sean Reddington, CEO and Founder of Thrive, commented:
“North America has become a huge growth opportunity for Thrive and that's why I'm moving out there.
There's a big difference between selling into a market and genuinely building a presence there to support our ever-growing US customer base.
We're investing in people, leadership and a new HQ in Austin because we want to build something substantial close to our biggest customers and provide even more support on the ground.
Welcoming an organization the size of Office Depot is another huge step forward for us and shows the appetite we're seeing from major North American enterprises for a more modern learning technology partner.
And they aren't the only ones. We're seeing more enterprise organizations making the jump from traditional learning technology to an AI-first solution that can seamlessly become part of how people work every day.
It's an incredibly exciting time for Thrive.”
Growing demand for a new generation of learning technology
Thrive's North American investment comes as the company sees growing demand from enterprise organizations looking to move away from traditional learning technology toward more connected, AI-powered experiences.
Rather than operating as a standalone LMS, Thrive brings together learning, knowledge, skills, communication, social learning and performance support within one platform.
At the heart of that experience is Kiki, Thrive's AI, which helps employees find instant answers and relevant knowledge in the flow of work, while giving organizations new ways to create content, analyze data and support their people at scale.
For global enterprises with thousands of employees spread across different countries, locations and roles, that ability to connect learning and knowledge directly to work is becoming increasingly important.
Thrive's pace and agility in product development have also become an important part of its proposition in the enterprise market, as organizations look for technology partners that can keep pace with rapid advances in AI and changing employee expectations.