News
LDC-backed Croud strengthens brand offering with acquisition of Born Social
15 Nov 2022
Croud, the award winning, global digital marketing agency working with some of the world’s leading brands, today announces the acquisition of Born Social, the global social media agency.
This transaction marks Croud’s third acquisition in 12 months. With the support of its private equity partner LDC, it continues to build its group of global businesses. This follows the acquisition of luxury digital marketing agency VERB Brands in November 2021, and data and analytics company impakt Advisors in December. The transaction takes Croud group’s annual revenues to more than £50m in its latest financial year, a record for the group.
Founded in 2012, Born Social provides specialist strategy, creative, media, management and influencer services to social-first brands such as Nando’s, Guinness and Primark, as well as brand new client wins this year including Uber, Seedlip and Jägermeister. In September this year Born Social received B-Corp certification – one of very few agencies with this accolade.
Born Social’s social and brand advertising expertise will bolster Croud’s existing social and creative offering, providing new and existing clients with the best-in-class services across the entire digital ecosystem. In addition, Born Social’s proprietary measurement and effectiveness tool, Caliper, will complement Croud’s growing data solutions offering by helping clients better articulate the value social media provides for their business, going beyond surface measures like followers, engagement and ROAS.
The business is owned and run by the six-strong leadership team, led by CEO Ben Tyson and COO Charlotte Hamill. Born Social will continue trading under its brand name but now ‘powered by Croud’, and the leadership team will stay on in their current capacity, to run the business. Last year, Ben Tyson was recognised as a One to Watch in LDC’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders Awards, supported by The Times.
With the addition of Born Social’s UK and European workforce, Croud’s global footprint now exceeds 450 people, spanning across the UK, the US, Europe and MENA.
Both businesses operate remote-working models, with Born Social’s European workforce completely remote and Croud’s global freelance network of 2,500+ digital experts.
Leading mid-market private equity firm LDC invested in Croud in 2019 to support the management team’s plans to expand internationally, invest in its proprietary technology and services, and explore complementary acquisitions. The private equity investor is actively working with the management to explore more acquisitive opportunities that support its international expansion plans.
This is a big step for us into the world of brand advertising and creative. Born Social’s appetite for the Croudie network, their shared vision for how that, plus Croud’s global reach, can help take them into new markets, as well as the crossover of our client portfolios, NPS scores, and cultures, were all major factors that helped seal this deal."
David Andrews, Partner at LDC, added: “Croud’s acquisition of Born Social adds market-leading social, creative and influencer services to enhance its offering as a leading digital marketing agency. Luke and the team at Croud have quickly established the Croud group as a leading global digital agency. We are looking forward to supporting Born Social’s continued growth plan, leveraging Croud’s infrastructure and Croudie network, along with the future expansion of the Croud Group.”