We are delighted to have secured backing from Horizon Capital to strengthen our ability to create commercial outcomes for our clients.
We are blessed with a wonderful set of clients and a highly talented team. The investment from Horizon Capital will help us to build on those foundations at a transformational time for the B2B marketing industry.
To find out more, watch a short interview with our CEO Matt Harper or read on for some thoughts from Matt and our founder, Clive McNamara.
We spoke to our founder, Clive McNamara, about what it means for our clients, colleagues and community:
To start, why is now the right time?
“We believe our brand of results-driven B2B marketing is more relevant now than ever. Our clients are adapting to disruption in sales and distribution models. They are wrestling with the explosion in data and technology. They are looking for a smaller number of the right partners to help them adapt and continue to grow.
“Our leadership position in account-based marketing (ABM), demand generation and channel marketing gives us a great platform. We want to strengthen that and add new capabilities in the areas we know are important for the future, like data, technology and digital media.
“We’ve had some great initial feedback from our customers. They want partners who are proactively investing in the future, and this investment gives them confidence that we’ll continue to innovate on their behalf.”
Tell us a bit more about the investment and how it works?
“Horizon Capital is a private equity firm that specialises in helping businesses of our size realise their ambitions. Like us, they recognise that the B2B market is growing and fragmented and have identified an opportunity to create more value for our clients by harnessing developments in technology and bringing together new capabilities. They’ll guide us through a buy and build strategy to acquire the right partners and invest in our own hiring and skills development.
“Horizon Capital’s deep sector knowledge and proven track record makes them the perfect investment partner for our business. What’s great for us is that they recognise how important it is for us to remain in control of our destiny. I’ll still be on the board, Matt will remain as CEO and the leadership team will remain in place. However, what’s really exciting is that we now have the ability to develop new services and capabilities to improve the value we create for our clients.”
And our CEO Matt Harper shares more about the opportunities the investment creates
“The Marketing Practice is and always will be about delivering commercial outcomes. We have built a great reputation based on the partnerships we’ve forged with our clients. Those two principles, effectiveness and client delight, will be what guide us.
“We are already one of the leaders in ABM and it remains the fastest growing discipline in B2B marketing, so a big part of this is becoming even better at what we do well. ABM is growing fast and there are advances all the time which we can take advantage of.
“Another goal is further international expansion. We are one of a small number of B2B specialists now with a global footprint. We know it’s important to our clients we continue to invest in opening new markets.
“Finally, we plan to invest in data and technology. There’s been such an explosion in these areas in recent years. The next era in B2B marketing will be defined by how we take control of the fragmentation that this has created and really sharpen the focus on outcomes. It’s not going to be about MQLs or leads, it’s about revenue, better deals, long-term growth. Our goal is to invest in both the technology and the skills to harness the power of data to make a real impact in these areas for our clients.
“We’ll do this partly by acquiring other great companies, and partly by developing our own talent and tools. We have already invested heavily in the TMP Academy, our own training platform, and that will continue to grow as we do. One of the most exciting things is the opportunity it offers our teams to develop and flourish.”
