SI Partners advised Market Gravity on the transaction.
Global M&A advisor to creative and technology businesses, SI Partners, advised Market Gravity on the sale to Deloitte. SI Partners has worked with Market Gravity for a number of years, providing a strategic options review and growth consultancy services, before supporting through the transaction.
Market Gravity is a proposition design consultancy with over 60 people across offices in London, New York, Toronto & Edinburgh. Market Gravity helps clients including Barclays, CBYB, Aegon and British Gas create and launch innovative products and services.
Market Gravity’s rapidly growing team, which combines consultants, designers, marketers, insight specialists and entrepreneurs will become part of Deloitte’s consulting business. Its two founding partners, Gideon Hyde and Peter Sayburn, will also become Deloitte partners and continue to lead the team operating under the Market Gravity brand.
Market Gravity’s innovation and customer-led design skills, combined with Deloitte’s capacity for large scale digital transformation, will enable clients to reinvent their businesses for the future.
"Deloitte offers an ideal platform for Market Gravity’s next stage of global growth. The great deal of synergy and strategic fit delivered by the deal creates a really exciting opportunity for Market Gravity and Deloitte. A hugely innovative digital transformation business joining forces with one of the world’s leading advisory firms will enable both businesses to better meet the needs of their clients now and in the future. This acquisition is further evidence of the increased activity in the marcoms M&A market and in particular the trend of consultancies vying for the best innovation and strategic digital talent in the marcoms sector.
The consultancies are exploiting digital disruption to own a greater share of client budget and greater access to the boardroom, through acquisitions that reposition their offering as one that is able to deliver a one-stop solution to the c-suite. In a market where there is a lot of competition for assets that enhance strategic and digital capability, the major consultancies are fast gaining on the marcoms groups. The acquisition of Market Gravity will be Deloitte’s third transaction in the sector this year".
Joe Hine, Partner, SI Partners
Peter Sayburn, discussing the deal with The Drum commented: “We have a distinctive market offering in my mind but we also have proven a blueprint of what a new generation of consultancy can be but proven on a small scale. We hope to take what we have developed and really super charge it to scale.” Rich Hurley, technology consulting partner at Deloitte, echoed the opportunity offered, stating: “We had a really close fit in terms of ethos…it allows this fantastic way of working and approach and allows us to scale it across a deeper client set and to truely get the products and proposition out there.” read the full story in The Drum here.
Speaking to London Loves Business, Rich Hurley commented: “Having already collaborated on a number of projects in the past, Deloitte and Market Gravity have a proven ability to work together. The team at Market Gravity have a unique combination of insight, commercial and design skills that give clients confidence to take a big idea and launch it to market, much quicker than previously possible. Their entrepreneurial spirit is evident in all their work, and something we know that all our clients will love.”
Peter Sayburn said: “We are really excited to be joining forces with Deloitte. Excited about the growth opportunities it brings us as a business and the opportunities this creates for our clients around the world. Ultimately we’re extending our leadership in delivering big company innovation. Market Gravity’s impact, and the impact on our clients and their customers, will be bigger than ever before.”
Richard Houston, UK and North West European managing partner for consulting at Deloitte, said: “Today’s acquisition is an exciting announcement for the continued growth of Deloitte’s consulting business. The Market Gravity team will help boost our creative consulting services and position us as a true market leader in helping clients create and launch innovative products and services. In an age of rapid technological change and disruption, together we can help clients innovate and succeed in the digital era.”
