Wellness start-up Urban establishes development office in Lithuania

Urban was founded in 2014 by Jack Tang and Giles Williams to provide easy and affordable access to wellness, so people can live happier and healthier every day.

Since then, Urban has delivered well over 300,000 treatments in London, Paris, Manchester and Birmingham.

As part of the company’s ambitious growth strategy they are opening a new office in Vilnius. This 30-member Lithuanian team will be part of the company’s product development and engineering division.

Originally conceived as an app to connect individuals and companies with massage therapists, in 2018 Urban expanded beyond massage to form three business divisions: physical wellbeing, beauty and fitness. A growing range of services now includes massage, facial, nail and osteopath treatments, performed at times and places chosen by clients.

To aid this expansion, the company is investing in the technical development of its app and products.

“Our new Vilnius office will be instrumental in helping to evolve our service,” says Giles Williams, co-founder of Urban.  “The Lithuania team will work on all aspects of our marketplace platform, including its award-winning client apps, practitioner business software, corporate offering and data science projects.”

Lithuania’s reputation for product and engineering talent was the main driver behind Urban’s decision to open a Vilnius office. With its track record as a development centre for global players such as Uber, Vilnius was a natural fit for Urban. Moreover, Lithuania’s central European location made it a convenient logistical choice. A modern and sophisticated society, it’s a neat cultural match for the markets that Urban serves.

“The surge of innovative and globally well-known tech companies to Vilnius and their decision to relocate the most important operations allowed the „snowball“ effect to take place. With every new engineering division, Lithuania increases not only its reputation of being one of the few IT industry centers in Europe, but also its ecosystem. This also provides impetus to Lithuanian startups developing similar products and services in the industry,” states the Minister of Economy and Innovation Virginijus Sinkevičius.

Urban plans to celebrate its new location with a Hackathon – a coding event providing tech-savvy professionals and enthusiasts with a chance to compete for five cash prizes of €1000 each. The Hackathon will take place in Vilnius on the 4^th-5^th May. Anyone interested is welcome to register here: http://bit.ly/urbanhack.

“Lithuanian talent is thirsty for innovation and the disruption of conventional approaches, exemplified by multiple local self-starters. The arrival of Urban to Lithuania is further indication that we are ready to tailor to businesses in the emerging “gig economy” segment,” says Mantas Katinas, Managing Director of Invest Lithuania.