“We didn’t wait for the arrival of ChatGPT last December to start talking about artificial intelligence (AI)!”, Hammers Le Figaro David Jones, founder and CEO of the Brandtech Group, a specialist in technology applied to exclusively digital brand communication. This Briton, involved until 2010 in David Cameron’s campaign before becoming boss of Havas (before Yannick Bolloré), has just made his ninth acquisition by buying from Fimalac, the group of French businessman Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, the Jellyfish company. The latter is one of the world leaders in digital marketing with clients such as Uber, eBay, Disney and Spotify. As part of the operation, the amount of which would be around 500 million dollars, Fimalac will also become a shareholder of Brandtech.
“With the integration of the highly profitable Jellyfish company, Brantech has sales of over $1 billion and more than 7,000 employees across 40 countries,” says David Jones. Since its creation in 2015, the American company Brantech Group has raised 500 million euros. The unlisted group claims to show organic growth of “more than 30%” over the past four years.
Last July, it bought the global AI-driven e-commerce SaaS platform, Acorn Intelligence, for more than $50 million. “For our acquisitions, we always target mature companies. And we are used to doubling or tripling the size of the companies that we buy out in two to three years, ”slips David Jones.
In parallel with these acquisitions, it has also taken minority stakes over the past seven years in the capital of the social network Pinterest and Niantic, the developer of the game Pokemon Go. To meet the main challenges of brands, Brandtech offers solutions ranging from from influence marketing to the integration of digital marketing teams at clients, through data expertise, e-commerce, metaverse and AI.
For example, it has a platform that connects brands with nearly 10,000 influencers and content creators. The group has also specialized in supporting advertisers who wish to internalize certain aspects of their digital marketing, such as the creation of production and content studios.
“Since our beginnings, we had considered that AI offered the possibility of marketing cheaper and faster,” slips the manager. “People today have no idea how much AI represents the greatest creative revolution we have ever seen,” concludes David Jones, member of AI Foundation.