SI Partners advise on sale of Feed to Dept

Digital marketing agency, Feed, has been acquired by Dutch-based agency group, Dept. SI Partners acted as sell-side adviser to Feed, identifying the purchaser and negotiating the transaction to completion.

Founded in 2005, Feed employs about 200 people globally, across a network of offices in London, Manchester, Berlin, Paris, Sydney, Toronto and San Francisco. Led by Matt Lynch, Feed is known for using consumer insights, omnichannel planning and proprietary creative automation technology to deliver “hyper-personalised” digital content at scale.

In an article by Campaign, Matt Lynch said the digital marketing landscape has expanded “in terms of data, targeting, martech and personalisation.” He said “marketers find it extremely difficult to take advantage of all those great, rich resources around them because it is ultimately too difficult, too slow and too expensive to make content for every single stage of that customer journey”. Feed has sought to fill that gap in the market as it creates content at scale so that “brands can truly communicate on a one-to-one basis”, he said.

Chief Executive of Dept, Dimi Albers, was quoted saying Feed’s international scale was part of its appeal as it means the group will enter the new markets of Canada and Australia and be able to serve global clients.

“As the next step for Feed, we wanted to offer our amazing clients new skills, deeper expertise, and opportunities for innovation.

Matt Lynch, Founder & CEO, Feed

“Joining with Dept allows us to do that in a way that’s culturally aligned, authentic and with a shared set of values that make us feel like we’re already home,” he said, citing Dept’s social and environmental commitments after it became B-Corp-certified earlier this year.

Tristan Rice, Partner at SI Partners who advised on the sale commented “Feed’s tech and data-enabled approach to creating personalised content at scale offers fantastic synergies with Byte and the wider Dept group and will set the standard for the 21^st century agency.”

Lynch said he was initially exploring whether to acquire, rather than sell, when he got to know Dept through an introduction by SI Partners.

Alex Miller, co-founder of Byte, who Dept acquired in February 2021, said his agency will work closely with Lynch and the Feed team. “Everyone now is talking about the need for personalisation at scale – whether you’re a media agency, a creative agency or even a PR agency, in some instances, but actually being able to deliver that sustainably is really challenging and very rare,” Miller said.

“What Feed is doing consistently for global brands – the quality of what they’re delivering, hundreds of thousands of personalised creative assets across the world – fills a huge gap in the marketing tick box list for clients.”

Read coverage of Feed sale to Dept in Campaign.