The Digital Marketing Agency Reinvented

GP Bullhound acted as exclusive financial advisor to Croud on a £30 million minority investment from private equity house LDC.

Founded in the UK in 2011, Croud provides tech-enabled digital marketing services to leading brands via an innovative and disruptive service delivery model. Croud uses its proprietary technology to support planning, automation and execution of digital marketing campaigns – and then scales this capability via its global network of 2,400 on-demand digital marketing specialists. It operates from offices in London, New York, Sydney and Shrewsbury.

LDC is backing the existing management team led by co-founders Luke Smith and Ben Knight. The deal will support Croud to accelerate its global growth alongside further development of its proprietary technology.

Luke Smith, CEO and Co-founder of Croud, commented: “We have seen phenomenal growth but we’re only just getting started. GP Bullhound has been a fantastic advisory partner to us, advising expertly on the range of options open to us and delivering the ideal transaction to continue our mission.”

Simon Nicholls, Partner at GP Bullhound, commented: “Croud is changing the game with technology, with an ability to deliver the right resourcing of skillset and local expertise at higher utilisation and lower cost using a curated proprietary marketplace of talent. In an increasingly digital-first market we expect to see more reinventions of the agency model like this, using technology and the gig economy to drive new delivery solutions.”

The transaction is further testament to GP Bullhound’s global expertise in advising category leaders in the Digital Services sector, with 21 transactions completed in this sector in the last 24 months including the majority investment in Jellyfish by Fimalac Group, the sales of Oliver to You & Mr Jones, MSQ Partners to LDC, Namics to Merkle and Wongdoody to Infosys among many others.