Investment type
- Development capital
Croud is a full-service digital marketing company that operates from offices across the world, with a diverse client portfolio including Amazon Prime, Aston Martin, Coach, Nespresso, Timberland and the VF Group.
It uses its proprietary technology to support the planning, automation and execution of digital marketing campaigns – and then scales this capability via its global marketplace of 2,900 digital marketing domain experts, the Croudie Network.
A partnership for growth
In November 2019, LDC completed a £30m minority investment in Croud, backing Co-Founders Luke Smith and Ben Knight to accelerate global growth and M&A activity.
With the support of LDC, the management team completed five complementary acquisitions – VERB Brands (now Croud Luxe), impakt Advisors, Born Social, Metageni and Vert Digital – expanding both at home and overseas.
Investing in people and technology
Croud also invested heavily in talent and technology to support growth.
This included appointing the former Chief Executive of Dentsu Aegis Network, Jerry Buhlmann, as its Non-Executive Chairman, in addition to the expansion of its senior team with the appointments of Avinash Kaushik, the former Google senior executive, as Global Chief Strategy Officer; Rick Stallings as Croud’s first Global Chief Data Officer; Dean Gardner as Global Chief Operating Officer; Dani Jordan as its first Chief Marketing and Integration Officer and Richard Holmes as Chief Financial Officer.
LDC’s support also enabled Croud to invest heavily in technology through the development of Croud Control, a proprietary technology platform that delivers AI-powered planning, workflows, automation and execution of digital marketing campaigns.
Remarkable growth
During the five-year partnership, Croud grew its US business to account for almost a third of the company’s revenue, and overall revenue increased by more than 360% and headcount by more than 250%.
Today, the business employs more than 600 people across its offices in London, Shrewsbury, New York, Atlanta and Dubai.
In October 2024, LDC exited its investment in Croud to ECI Partners in a transaction that generated a return of 2.8x.
We thank David Andrews and the LDC team for being a supportive and impactful partner over the past five years. We’ve achieved significant scale and success, whilst continuing to create brilliant opportunities for our people and deliver outstanding work for our clients.”
The benefits of private equity
CEO and Co-Founder, Luke Smith, Croud, spoke about his experience with LDC and the benefits of private equity at the BVCA High Growth 2022.
Watch the video
Awards
Best Places to Work 2024 (Big organisation)
The Sunday Times
Best Places to Work 2023 (Big organisation)
The Sunday Times
Performance Marketing Agency of the Year
Agency of the Year UK and EMEA Awards 2022 & 2020- Campaign Magazine
Digital Agency of the Year & Agency Wellbeing
The Drum Agency Business Awards US 2019