Centerfield Secures $156 Million in Financing And Acquires Performance Marketing Leader Qology Direct

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Centerfield, a leading digital advertising company that identifies customer intent and executes real time biddable (RTB) media to acquire customers using its proprietary technology, today announced that it is acquiring Qology Direct, a leader in performance based marketing for global brands to acquire and retain customers, with support from $156 million in financing.

Centerfield leverages its proprietary technology platform, Dugout, to optimize the customer acquisition process by identifying high value and intent driven consumers at scale across a variety of digital media platforms including search, display, social and others. By combining with Qology Direct, Centerfield now offers a fully integrated sales and marketing solution to engage the consumer from initial touch point all the way through completed sale, delivering new customers at scale to some of the biggest brands worldwide. The company's list of Fortune 100 Brands will benefit greatly from the combined services as will brands in new markets in which the company plans to expand.

"Aligning offerings with Qology Direct to create the largest front end through back end marketing platform is transformational for the market and our customers," said Centerfield Co-President and Co-Founder, Jason Cohen. "We frequently audit how big brands work with their 'blue chip' media agencies to reach prospects, and have found that not only is there a tremendous amount of wasted spend, these programs often fall short of their desired results. Bringing Centerfield together with Qology Direct is a multi-billion dollar market opportunity that delivers greater accountability and increases return on ad spend by enabling brands to more effectively identify, reach, cultivate, care for and convert customers."

"Qology Direct has always been comprised of forward thinking marketers specializing in all aspects of the buying process. By joining Centerfield, we join a like-minded company and gain the ability to deliver business impacting results for brands across their entire customer engagement process, intent to retention," said Qology Direct CEO Glenn Goad. "We've worked successfully with Centerfield in the past, and have seen how our combined efforts fundamentally reshape the way big brands engage with, convert and retain prospects. The existing relationship represents the tip of the iceberg for our shared commitment to delivering the most impactful, end-to-end marketing services in the space."

"We are very excited to see Centerfield continue to expand its product and services with the addition of Qology Direct. We look forward to continued growth, as we deliver tremendous results for the world's largest brands across a wide variety of industries," said Centerfield Co-President and Co-Founder Brett Cravatt.

The combined company will operate under the brand name Centerfield. By the end of 2017, the newly formed company expects to generate over 2,000,000 customer sales for their clients, and employ upwards of 2,000 staff members. Institutional investors in the business include H.I.G. Growth Partners, the dedicated growth capital investment affiliate of H.I.G. Capital and Falcon Investment Advisors.

About Centerfield 

Centerfield develops intelligent digital advertising technology focused on real time biddable media which enables targeting and acquisition of high performing, high life time value customers for its clients across numerous industries. The Company's sophisticated marketing technology platform leverages Big Data and optimizes each part of the customer acquisition process from initial view through offline sale in real time for the highest possible return on advertising spend. For more information, please refer to the Centerfield website http://www.centerfield.com/.

About Qology Direct

Qology Direct is comprised of forward thinking marketers that specialize in all aspects of the buying process. While other companies concentrate solely on acquiring new customers, we focus on a more complete picture. By using online marketing tactics that deliver results from start to finish, we keep in mind the total satisfaction of both our partners and the consumer. At the core of our business model lies the principle of positive consumer engagement, while user experience is found at the forefront of every decision we make. As creative yet analytical professionals, technology has been used along with an expertise in direct marketing to create the leading performance-based marketing company we are today.

About H.I.G. Growth Partners

H.I.G. Growth Partners is the dedicated growth capital investment affiliate of H.I.G. Capital, a leading global private equity investment firm with $21 billion of equity capital under management.* We seek to make both majority and minority investments in strong, growth oriented businesses located throughout North America, South America and Europe. We will invest $5 million to $30 million in equity in a given company and target investments in profitable growth oriented businesses with between $10 million and $100 million in revenues. We consider investments across all industries, but focus on certain high-growth sectors where H.I.G. has extensive in-house expertise such as technology, healthcare, internet and media, consumer products and technology-enabled financial and business services. Growth Partners strives to work closely with our management teams to serve as an experienced resource, providing broad-based strategic, operational, recruiting and financial management services from a vast in-house team and a substantial network of third-party relationships. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.HIGgrowth.com.

* Based on total capital commitments managed by H.I.G. Capital and affiliates.

About Falcon Investment Advisors

Falcon is a private equity firm with $2.9 billion of assets under management, providing subordinated debt and equity capital to middle market companies. Since 2000, Falcon has structured creative capital solutions for over 80 portfolio companies in a wide variety of transaction types.  For more information, please refer to the Falcon website at www.falconinvestments.com.

SOURCE Centerfield

Related Links

http://www.centerfield.com