Frog portfolio company Sellics has been acquired by Ascential plc, the specialist information, analytics and eCommerce optimisation company. Huge congratulations to Franz Jordan, Josef Vataman, Thomas Ropel and the entire team. Sellics will become part of Ascential’s digital commerce business, Perpetua, to grow their European customer base by taking advantage of Sellics’ technology platform.
Duncan Painter, CEO of Ascential, commented: “Sellics’ strong presence in the European challenger market and engineering expertise will accelerate Perpetua’s growth outside its existing US operations, while Perpetua itself will provide exciting growth opportunities for the Sellics’ customer base through its advanced product set.”
This marks another successful exit for Frog, with no losses or write-downs in over 5 years. In addition to strong deal sourcing and robust evaluation of entrepreneurial talent, market and technology, Frog’s Scale-Up Methodology is proving instrumental to value creation. The methodology includes a framework of focus areas for software scale-up businesses and comprising thought leadership and toolkits, but at its core is Frog’s in-house team of experienced specialists who work with our portfolio senior management teams.
We were introduced to Sellics by one of our other portfolio CEOs and were impressed with the team’s progress as pioneers in Amazon Advertising solutions, in which they had grown into a global leader without outside funding. They had recognised the importance and scope of advertising on Amazon earlier than the rest of the market and hence developed a sizeable first mover advantage.
Having been bootstrapped before our investment, Frog contributed across multiple fronts, including the creation of a formal board with related processes, as well as connecting the team to one of our Operating Partners, James Bagan, who was eventually appointed independent Chairman of the Board. James commented, “I’m delighted to have played a very small part in the Sellics story and work with Franz, Josef, Thomas and the team. It’s fantastic to find a new home for the business with Ascential and look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength.”
Senior Partner and Head of Portfolio, Steven Dunne, provided support in scaling Sellics’ finance function and played an active role in the recruitment process. Andrew Betteley worked closely with CTO and cofounder, Josef Vataman, to scale the technology team and deliver a new scalable platform for Sellics’ product suite.
Perpetua will benefit from Sellics’ scaled platform and strong European market leadership. We look forward to watching their progress together.
