Private equity firm LDC has invested £30 million to take a minority stake in Croud, a digital marketing agency.
Croud was set up in 2011 and has offices in London, New York, Sydney and Shrewsbury. Its clients include Vans, AXA IM, Virgin Trains, The North Face, Intuit and The AA.
Earlier this year Croud launched Serpico, a proprietary software-as-a-service platform which offers in-house digital marketers access to its "Croudie" freelancer network, as well as audits and benchmarks of a client's digital marketing activity.
LDC is backing the existing management team led by Co-Founders Luke Smith and Ben Knight.
Croud generated £15.4 million in revenue in its latest financial year.
Luke Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of Croud, said: "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%.”
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.”
