Ethos Partners and Beechbrook invest in Strata Communications

HMT acted as lead advisors to the shareholders of Strata Communications, a market leading experiential marketing agency, on their investment from Ethos Partners LLP and Beechbrook Capital LLP. At the same time HMT support the Strata management team with buy-side advice on their acquisition of Element London, a bespoke prize, incentives and rewards agency.

Strata was formed in 2018 through the merger of two agencies, led by CEO Simon Hambley and Client Services Director Cole Mulkerrins. The two are both 30-year industry veterans with deep sector experience in branding and events. The vision for Strata is to build a vertically-integrated brand experience operator, with the ability to globally deliver a full suite of live, virtual and hybrid events for its global clients. With a core focus in the automotive, pharmaceutical and technology sectors, Strata provides experiential brand events and product demonstrations, as well as employee and customer engagement programmes. Strata has an established “blue-chip” client base many of whom have provided the business repeat or recurring business for ten years or more which is being augmented with significant new client wins.

Since launch, Strata has begun to acquire other businesses with complementary and additive service offerings, including event production business ON (April 2023) and venue sourcing provider Trinity (June 2024). Shortly before completing the investment round Strata completed the acquisition of Element further diversifying their service offering and sector coverage across entertainment and retail.

HMT were mandated to find an investment partner to provide capital to support continuing this strategy to include supporting a push into new high value sectors (including Technology, Professional Services and Retail) and new markets (focusing on North America and Asia Pac where they have existing blue-chip client relationships). Ethos and Beechbrook’s investment will allow the business to continue its impressive growth trajectory to include accelerating its acquisition activity.

The HMT team, led by Partner Andrew Thomson and Director Ricky Lane included Debt Advisory Director, Neil Brown, and Managers, Francis Drysdale and Jack Waterman, and provided corporate finance lead advisory and debt advisory services.

Simon Hambley, founder and CEO of Strata commented:

Julian Carr, Ethos CEO, said:

“We first met Simon a year ago and were immediately impressed with his entrepreneurialism and deep sector knowledge, having started his first business at the age of 22. We have tracked the continued growth of the business organically and by acquisition and experienced at first hand the quality of their client offer, which was more than reinforced by those customers to whom we spoke. We look forward to supporting the team in making further acquisitions to expand their proposition in terms of service, geography and sector verticals.”

Ricky Lane commented:

“We are delighted to have advised Simon and Cole on both the acquisition of Element and their investment from Ethos and Beechbrook. The management team at Strata have a demonstrable track record for identifying, acquiring and integrating strategic acquisitions to enhance the capital value of their business and with the financial backing of their new funding partners Strata is now well positioned to consolidate this fragmented market. The team have huge growth ambitions, and we are looking forward to working with them on their buy-and-build journey going forward.“

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