Canoe Needs a Bigger Boat

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/22/2010 12:51:51 PM

Canoe Ventures, the advanced-ad startup funded by the six biggest U.S. cable operators, still hasn’t launched a commercial service — but it’s hiring like mad and in May will move its New York headquarters into bigger office space.

The firm has a hiring plan for 2010 that would roughly double head count. It had 68 employees at the start of the year, and its plan calls for 135 by year-end, Canoe chief marketing officer Vicki Lins said.

“We’ve accomplished a lot with freelancers and contractors … but it’s time to shift that model and get people on staff ,” she said. Canoe is bringing on staffers in all departments, but is particularly focused on product, operations and technology groups, Lins said.

The company’s initial interactive-TV service, which will provide a request-for-information service to cable viewers, is set for the second quarter with “one or two” programmers, according to Lins. Canoe last year abandoned plans to deliver a basic addressable-advertising service, citing technical complexity and business issues.

To accommodate the growing staff, Canoe signed a lease for 40,000 square feet in 1251 Ave. of the Americas, a building owned by Japanese real-estate company Mitsui Fudosan, near Radio City Music Hall. Canoe will occupy the entire 39th floor, previously occupied by Lloyds TSB Bank. The lease runs through Sept. 30, 2012, as Canoe expects to possibly need even more space by then.

Currently, Canoe’s New York offices are located in an 18,000-square-foot space at 666 Third Ave., next to the Chrysler Building. “We’re bursting at the seams,” Lins said.

The “asking rent” per year for the space in the Mitsui building was $42 per square foot, Crain’s New York Business reported. According to Lins, Canoe paid less than that but she would not confirm the terms.

Coincidentally, Canoe had been investigating moving into the former New York offices of Comcast Spotlight, the ad-sales unit of the operator, in the W.R. Grace Building on 42nd Street. Comcast Spotlight is now located on the 10th floor of 5 Times Square.

Canoe was formed in 2008 by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks.