Analytics startup Datadog taking a bite out of NYT building

Fresh off $94.5M cash injection, firm signs 31K sf sublease

The New York Times Building (inset: Olivier Pomel)
The New York Times Building (inset: Olivier Pomel)

Data-monitoring startup Datadog is ready for some new digs after its recent $94.5 million fundraising round.

The six-year-old tech firm is relocating from its headquarters in NoMad to the New York Times building at 620 Eighth Avenue in Midtown, where it signed a sublease for a little more than 31,500 square feet.

Datadog completed a Series D funding round in January, bringing the company’s total investment to a hair shy of $148 million. And all that investment has led to growth at the firm, which reportedly grew in size last year from 75 to 180 employees.

The company is now subleasing the entire 45th floor at the 52-story Times building from Ideel, a “flash fashion” online retailer that Groupon bought back in 2014. The lease runs through 2023.

Brokers Frederick Fackelmayer and Jared Isaacson at CBRE, who represented Ideel in negotiations, confirmed the lease but declined to comment further. Daniel Schwartz of Winslow and Company represented Datadog and also declined to comment.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

A source not involved in the deal said Datadog signed the sublease at $62 per square foot, with free rent for the first four months.

Datadog is relocating from Isaac Chetrit’s 286 Fifth Avenue [TRData] where the company moved into 5,000 square feet in 2013, according to Costar. Two years later it moved into another floor of growth space, doubling its footprint. The asking rent was $45 per square foot.

The tech company streamlines and analyzes data collected from apps and other digital tools for clients like Airbnb, DraftKings and – coincidentally – the New York Times, which is the largest tenant in the 1.8 million-square-foot tower, located between 40th and 41st streets.

Forest City Ratner Companies developed the Renzo Piano-designed building, completed in 2007, through a partnership with the Times, which two years later sold its interest in its 750,000 square feet in the building to the Midtown-based investment firm W.P. Carey in a sale-leaseback deal.

The Times has an option to purchase its condominium interest in 2019 for $250 million.