Private equity firm takes £30m stake in digital marketing specialist

Luke Smith and Ben Knight

Croud, the Shropshire digital marketing agency has secured a £30m minority investment from private equity firm LDC.

The deal will help the firm, which also has offices in London, New York and Sydney to ramp up global growth.

Croud says it has a global network of 2,400 “on-demand” digital marketing experts and has worked with the likes of Vans, AXA IM, Virgin Trains, The North Face, Intuit, The AA, Hiscox, and IWG. In its latest financial year, Croud generated £15.4m in revenue. It is now extending its footprint across the USA, winning major brands as clients such as The Athletic and Audible.

LDC is backing the existing management team led by Co-Founders Luke Smith and Ben Knight.

he deal was led by LDC director David Andrews, investment director Joseph Fison and investment manager Dan Gluckman. David Andrews and Yann Souillard, LDC’s head of London, will join Croud’s board as non-executive directors.

Luke Smith, CEO and co-founder of Croud, said: “We are absolutely delighted to announce our partnership with LDC. This moment is the culmination of eight years of hard work, dedication and brilliance from our team, all of whom are stakeholders in the business and will share in our success.

“But this is just the beginning – we underwent a rigorous process in finding the right partner for us and looked at several options, but LDC share our vision and offer the ideal platform for us to continue on our mission – which very much remains to become the world’s finest digital technology and communications group.

“We started Croud in 2011 to build a truly different marketing communications business, and have seen phenomenal growth, but we’re only just getting started. With the launch of our SaaS platform Serpico, our ever-expanding international business, and partnerships with all of the major platforms, we have so many reasons to be bullish about our future plans and increasing our current growth rate of over 40%.

“We are all looking forward to the next phase of Croud’s growth alongside the LDC team.”

David Andrews, director at LDC, added: “The team at Croud have built a unique proposition that is disrupting a fast-growing sector. Its crowd-sourced and tech-enabled model has proven it can deliver exceptional results through faster, more cost-effective and efficient resource, combined with the ambition of the team – the perfect ingredients for growth.

“We are backing the management team’s vision and are excited at the opportunity to support them on the next stage of their journey.”

LDC was advised by CMS, CIL, BDO, KPMG and Results International.

Croud was advised on the transaction by technology investment bank GP Bullhound and supported by Buzzacott and Taylor Wessing.

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