Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

New Business Bulletin: Arrowpoint Advisory, Proact, The Kite Factory and more

Arrowpoint Advisory’s TMT team has advised Inviqa, an independent digital experience agency – on its acquisition by Havas Group in a substantial, eight-figure deal. Inviqa, which comprises more than 150 employees across eight offices, will be integrated into Havas Creative’s dedicated customer experience network, Havas CX, to significantly expand its specialism, scale, and capabilities in experience design, software engineering, technology consulting, and e-commerce. As part of Havas CX, Inviqa will merge with Havas’ existing UK-based digital experience agency, ekino London. The combined company, which will be headquartered out of Havas’ UK Village in London’s King’s Cross, will retain the Inviqa brand and be led by Inviqa Founder Yair Spitzer.

Proact has qualified to sign new framework agreements with Kammarkollegiet (the Swedish Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency). This enables Proact to continue building IT infrastructure for the public sector in Sweden. The new data centre framework agreements are valid for the next four years and apply to the entire public sector in Sweden, including national agencies, regional and local government. Proact in Sweden has qualified as a supplier for the procurement areas Data centre 2019 – Data centre solutions, and Data centre 2021 – Servers and storage.

The Kite Factory has been appointed as media planning and buying agency for the subscription video service, Marquee TV, where consumers can stream the world’s best dance, opera, theatre, and music on demand. The Kite Factory has been tasked with planning and buying media in key markets including the US and across key distribution platforms to drive customer acquisition in 2022.

Netmore and the Finnish operator Digita have signed a cooperation agreement regarding roaming between the companies’ respective IoT networks (LoRaWAN). Netmore’s Swedish and international customers will gain full access to Digita’s nationwide network in Finland, and Digita will now be able to offer Netmore’s geographical LoRaWAN coverage in Sweden, the UK and Ireland. The roaming agreement between Netmore and Digita means that Netmore’s customers will be able to connect sensors, meters and other devices using Digita’s Finnish network with nationwide coverage. Service developers, sensor manufacturers and other IoT actors that are part of Netmore’s ecosystem will thereby gain greater opportunities to reach out with new and established IoT solutions to more geographical markets, thanks to the increased coverage.

kencko, a US direct-to-consumer plant-based nutrition brand, has implemented Referral Engineering platform Mention Me to ramp up its rapid growth and turn referral into a high-performing marketing channel. With iOS changes making it increasingly difficult to forecast growth and budget customer acquisition costs for Facebook and Google, kencko needed a reliable channel that would bring in new members. Within three months of swapping out its in-house programme for Mention Me’s Referral Engineering technology, referral accounted for 8% of customer acquisition. This is underpinned by highly referral products that customers want to tell others about; 66% share kencko with friends, and an impressive 22% of these referrals convert into new customers.

NextPlay Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: NXTP), announced that NextBank International, the international banking unit of its fintech division, has partnered with TruCash Group of Companies Inc., a global payments provider, to launch NextBank Payments, which will include (but not be limited to) Mobile Wallets, Mobile Payments, Credit cards, Debit Cards, and Prepaid products.  In addition, NextBank will have the opportunity to offer NextBank’s international banking services to TruCash’s millions of account holders worldwide.

TENCO Mobile and Manchester City has collaborated with Footballco, the world’s largest football content and media business, on a new campaign that will see two aspiring football journalists from India given the chance to become trainee correspondents writing for Footballco’s GOAL website, covering the reigning Premier League Champions. The collaboration with Footballco is an extension of last season’s association, which resulted in two trainee reporters creating more than 368 pieces of content which reached more than 34m fans and generated 5.6m video views.

Circulor, the sustainable supply chain traceability provider, has announced a comprehensive partnership with Rock Tech Lithium, the Canadian-German cleantech company, and Fraunhofer UMSICHT, an institute of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the applied research organization, to ensure the production of German-made lithium hydroxide with the lowest possible environmental impact. London-headquartered Circulor will ensure traceability and dynamic CO2 tracking for Rock Tech’s plant in Brandenburg, which is expected to produce 24,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide a year – enough for the batteries of half a million electric vehicles. Circulor’s work will precede the EU’s battery regulation, which takes effect as early as 2024.

Nebuli®, the world’s first Augmented Intelligence Studio, has launched its newest solution, ClientLab®, an innovation-as-a-service solution providing customers with a dedicated research and development (R&D) service informed by Nebuli’s leading innovation strategy. Nebuli has developed ClientLab to provide organisations with access to expertise, including panels of scientists, business development experts, designers, and engineers. This new service will provide partners with the innovation support needed to create technologies that shift the mindset of their customers, leading to a strong market impact.

Contentsquare is launching its new CS for Consumer Brands service, which allows retailers to share in-depth insights with brands on online customer behaviour to improve digital experiences and optimise sales performance. Through its international service centre (Patinvest), French Retailer Auchan is playing a pioneering role by already sharing data and insights on consumer behaviors with some of its suppliers. Building on their long-standing relationship, Contentsquare turned to Auchan to launch its new CS for Consumer Brands service dedicated to retailers. Contentsquare has benefitted from and worked together with Auchans’s digital and data teams’ expertise to develop a service that meets the needs of its supplier brands.

Adverty has announced an exclusive partnership with gaming and esports entertainment company Super League Gaming to sell unobtrusive, contextually relevant ads inside Roblox. As well as taking on exclusive rights in the Nordics, Adverty has also acquired rights to work with Super League in the US and Latin America. The new deal adds Super League’s robust inventory of over 150 games in the Roblox metaverse – one of the world’s most popular gaming destinations with over 200 million monthly players – to Adverty’s portfolio of in-play ads.

Midlands’ businesses will benefit from a new fulfilment centre opening in Leamington Spa next month that offers business clients more sustainable packing and distribution options. Fullers Fulfilment is currently fitting out a 30,000 sq ft warehouse in Spa Park, which it expects will service about 100 small to medium sized e-commerce businesses in the Midlands area that need orders picked, packed and distributed to customers, as well as handling returns and providing secure storage. As part of its service, Fullers will offer expert advice on low-waste and eco-friendly options, including recyclable packaging and couriers with electric fleets, that match businesses ethics and values, as well as meeting practical needs.

AI-driven marketing platform RedEye has partnered with global cloud communications provider Infobip to support and scale their multi-channel messaging offering. This partnership will offer RedEye clients greater reach and more effective delivery of their automated communication campaigns across the channels available through Infobip’s CPaaS portfolio. This includes the use of transactional and promotional messaging via SMS, to attract, engage and convert customers into purchasing. The second phase of the partnership will see RedEye look to use Infobip’s wider SaaS solutions, including LiveChat, WhatsApp and Rich Communications Service (RCS) solutions, to enable clients to deliver fully branded, interactive messaging.