MediaMonks merges with Firewood to elevate S4Capital's digital offering
Sir Martin Sorrell's S4Capital has acquired Firewood, a Silicon Valley digital agency, for £150m which it will merge with MediaMonks, its digital global content practice.
MediaMonks merges with Firewood, Silicon Valley’s largest digital agency
The buy is a bid to leverage S4Capital's digital capabilities, as it strives to deliver a "purely digital, first-party data-driven, faster, better and cheaper content and programmatic offer for clients worldwide, with a unitary business model," said the press release.
Firewood was established in 2010, and its capabilities include creative strategy and planning, performance media and technology services. It boasts a client list of Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Salesforce and VMware. The acquisition will grow MediaMonks' headcount by a fifth.
Discussing the acquisition and merger, Sir Martin Sorrell, senior monk and executive chairman of S4Capital said: “This merger is a further step in creating a new era communications services leader.
"Firewood has an enviable client list comprising many of Silicon Valley’s finest; and we are delighted to welcome Juan, Lanya and their colleagues to the S4Capital family. We will now have over 1,800 professionals in 23 countries, with over 500 in each of two nodes, one in Silicon Valley and one in Amsterdam.”
Adding to this, Wesley ter Haar, founding monk and chief operations officer of MediaMonks said: “Firewood’s 'embedded' approach will allow us to build deeper and broader relationships with our clients, helping us work in a more flexible, collaborative and integrated way.”
Further, Lanya Zambrano, founder and president of Firewood said: "This merger is recognition of all our people. The richness of our differences creates our collective value. We embrace finding diverse talent; as a certified Women/Minority-owned Business Enterprise, 38% of our employees are from diverse ethnic backgrounds, 67% are women, and our leadership team is comprised of nearly 64% women.
"We look forward to developing further a new, disruptive model in the communications industry with MediaMonks and S4Capital as further proof that diversity is an intrinsic part of our industry’s future.”