Google Opens New Office in Berlin

Unter den Linden is a famous Berlin street: within a short stroll, you will pass the towering Brandenburg Gate, the ornate parliament building, countless shops and now Google’s new office.

The Mountain View-based tech giant officially opened its doors in the German capital on Wednesday, September 26, just one day shy of its 14th anniversary.

The new office deals mostly with sales and marketing—and lobbying Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, which sits about a mile away.

“We want to give Google a face in the German public and show what our goals are,” said Ralf Bremer, senior manager of communications and public affairs of the 25-employee office, which has operated since April.

The office has partnered with the local start-up community, which has grown so large in size it has been hyped up as Silicon Allee—a German word for street or boulevard.

For its entrepreneurship contest 'Gruender-Garage' the Google team is working with Entrepreneurship Foundation and San Francisco-based IndieGoGo. The foundation assists with online training, while IndieGoGo helps entrepreneurs crowd-fund their projects. Until September 24 more than 160 campaigns were created, and more than 85,000 Euro funds ($109,000) collected.

A talk series every three months will also bring in famous founders and entrepreneurs. The last talk dealt with how to finance your own company.

"We asked everyone in the audience who’s started their own company or who’s thinking of starting their own company, and all hands went up," said Bremer. "We really have a core crowd here."

So far the Berlin office has acquired one local company, DailyDeal, a German-equivelent of deal finding websites like Groupon, as well as recently Nik Software, a San Diego based expert on photo editing that was founded in Hamburg in 1995. Google has also invested in a solar energy plant in Brandenburg near Berlin.

However, company acquisition is not the business of the new Berlin office.

"We’re a small team that’s not specialized in investing," said Bremer.

The German media is notoriously skeptical of the company—often painting a picture of it a tech giant insensitive to personal security. A German levied a lawsuit against Google Street View in 2011, and the country opted out of expanding it further. Germany’s former first lady just sued Google because she felt the Autocomplete helped perpetuate rumors about her.

Bremer hopes the new office will change people's perceptions about Google and its business model.

“Some think that we sell customer information to third parties, which is not true,” said Bremer.

The new office is the fifth in Germany. The largest sits two hours north in Hamburg with 250 employees.

In related news:

• Mozilla's Newest Office Used To Be Part of the Berlin Wall
• Gift of Berlin Wall Segments to Mountain View Links Cities