Tide, the UK’s leading business management platform, is expanding its international presence by significantly growing its technology centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. The move reinforces the company’s commitment to international expansion and scaling its engineering capabilities, with plans to hire an additional 60-70 full-time professionals over the next three years.
The tech centre, which officially opened in 2024, plays a pivotal role in developing new products and supporting Tide’s expanding member base across the UK, India, Germany, and France. It complements the fintech’s existing global technology development centres in Serbia and Romania. The new roles will be remote-first, focusing on backend and mobile development, though they will be anchored by the Vilnius office.
Tapping world-class engineering talent
Tide’s decision to establish a core hub in Vilnius was influenced by its initial successful partnership with Architus, a strategic technology partner that helped the company quickly build high-performing teams. By September 2024, 30 Architus engineers had been fully embedded within Tide’s organisation and have now transitioned into the newly established entity, Tide Lithuania.
Vinay Ramani, chief product officer of Tide, praised the choice of location. “Lithuania offers world-class engineering talent, a thriving fintech ecosystem, and a culture that embraces innovation,” Ramani said. “Our partnership with Architus has been instrumental in helping us tap into this exceptional talent pool and lay the foundation for our new tech centre.”
The expansion follows Tide’s recent $120million strategic investment led by TPG, which valued the company at $1.5billion. This capital is explicitly earmarked to fuel continued international growth, including the expansion of the Lithuanian centre, and accelerate investments in AI-driven product innovation to better serve SMEs across multiple markets.
Validating the Lithuanian fintech ecosystem
The investment is seen as a major validation of Lithuania’s competitive advantage in the digital economy. Elijus Čivilis, general manager of Invest Lithuania, noted that the quality of the country’s talent was the deciding factor. “The fact that it was the experience that Tide had had with our people that influenced their investment decision demonstrates the caliber of expertise we offer to global companies,” Čivilis commented.
Waldemaras Urbanas, vice minister of the economy and innovation, concurred, stating that when leading UK fintechs choose Lithuania to build their engineering capabilities, it validates the work being done to create an ecosystem where innovation and regulation work hand-in-hand. This investment represents high-quality job creation and sectoral growth, strengthening Lithuania’s position as the EU’s biggest fintech hub by licensed entities.