UK media agency MNC has acquired Grwth, a pioneering consultancy and venture fund in the consumer brand space.
The multi-million-pound deal will create a dynamic one-stop shop for challenger brands that is built around proprietary market intelligence. The combined business will retain the MNC name.
MNC has built various challenger brands, including Moonpig, Confused.com, Wayfair, Trivago and Oak Furniture Land.
The combined group has a trading history of £50 million+ in annual billings and intends to actively deploy capital into scaleup brands through their venture fund.
The deal will combine MNC’s proven track record among challenger brands with Grwth’s game-changing ‘operator first’ model. This will create a new paradigm that fuses media, advisory and venture funding into a differentiated proposition that meets clients’ real-world growth challenges.
According to MNC CEO Luke Bristow, Integrating Grwth allows the company to merge 30 years of traditional media expertise with cutting-edge digital capabilities.
“Grwth not only brings deep brand-side experience to the team but a business based on rich data-powered insights.”
Grwth co-founders Jake Higgins and Joe Benn join MNC as partners. Luke Bristow will lead the newly merged company as CEO, while founder Andrew McCutcheon will continue as chairman. MNC veteran Daniel Fisk remains a director and board member.
MNC will be structured around a three-prong offering:
MNC Media: A full-funnel and channel-agnostic media agency built for challenger brands.
MNC Ventures: An investment fund focused on unearthing and funding Seed and Series A stage consumer businesses. The first portfolio investment was made in late 2024 with more announcements to follow this year.
MNC Club: an advisory service that matches brands with the best-suited creative and technical agency partners across the marketing spectrum. MNC Club has already enabled over 300+ challenger brands to find the right partner.
MNC partner Jake Higgins said:
“Our integrated approach across Media, Ventures and Club gives us unique market intelligence — when innovative marketing strategies or tactics emerge in UK consumer brands, it is immediately on our radar."
MNC and Grwth are already working with the next wave of challenger brands, including Beauty Pie, Wealthify, TALA clothing and coffee brand GRIND.
Lead image: MNC. Photo: uncredited.
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