GRVTY Media acquired by Towerhill, raises funding to boost growth

Singapore-based media company GRVTY Media introduced now (July 29) that Towerhill — the investment decision car or truck of Kiat Lim, who is the son of billionaire Peter Lim — has acquired a vast majority stake of the firm for an undisclosed volume.

Aspect of the offer is a funds injection, which will be made use of to gas the company’s growth.

Launched in April 2017, GRVTY Media is a artistic agency and digital media team that houses Vulcan Article, VP Label, Millennials of Singapore, and The Everyday Ketchup. GRVTY Media also has a regional business office at Malaysia which residences Vulcan Write-up Malaysia and Find out KL.

It was past valued at S$3.6 million in July 2017 — just three months after its inception — in which it raised S$1 million from Spout Enjoyment Team (its shares were later on transferred to REAPRA).

What led to the acquisition?

Jacky Yap, co-founder of GRVTY Media, advised Vulcan Article that as a result of 1 of his several projects, Kiat bought acquainted with the corporation and experienced a probability to greater fully grasp its media and company abilities.

This opened the door to a lot of other “synergistic” company chances. Notably, Kiat sought GRVTY’s help in the a variety of corporations he is associated in, including Thomson Health-related Team, NFT neighborhood ARC, and digital football platform zujuGP. 

As small business relations and billings grew, Kiat initiated the discussion on a doable acquisition.

“Our preliminary response was, ‘let’s just see exactly where this goes’. We have received a variety of other acquisition offers, but this a person feels additional authentic since of our existing relationship and friendship. The total thing wrapped up really swiftly – within two months, they verified their wide conclusion to acquire and then we begun functioning by way of the numbers,” shared Johnathan Chua, co-founder of GRVTY. 

When requested why previous acquisition offers didn’t go as a result of, he cited two critical motives: there were no strategic gains for GRVTY, and they experienced acquired “lowball” gives. 

For this unique acquisition offer, the founders built it pretty crystal clear that the motive they acknowledged the offer is because they can see that it will aid them “take better care” of their workers, which involves superior salaries, and bringing in a lot more senior hires who can add their prosperity of knowledge.

We see a whole lot of strategic value in the acquisition for numerous causes. Kiat is clearly effectively-connected, allowing for us accessibility to new business alternatives. With the supplemental funding, it permits us to scale speedier despite a attainable looming recession. I individually appear up to Kiat and he thinks in our enterprise. Even prior to the acquisition, we’ve experienced numerous discussions at length as to how Jacky and I can further mature GRVTY Media, and now, I’m glad we’re likely to improve it jointly.

– Johnathan Chua, co-founder of GRVTY Media

Independently, Kiat informed Vulcan Put up that he has witnessed GRVTY’s regular and substantial calibre of perform good quality and competence during their functioning romance. 

“Having labored with John, Jacky, Sarah and the crew above the program of the past year, their do the job ethics strongly resonated with me. I am very pleased to have them, the abilities they have nurtured, and the brand names they’ve designed to be a portion of our ecosystem and I look forward to getting the GRVTY model to the following stage,” expressed Kiat.

​​It’s time to get “aggressive” with their expansion strategies

In accordance to the founders, GRVTY Media relished a potent start — it was worthwhile from the first month, and they obtained shut to S$2 million in earnings in their first year as partners again in 2017.

Nevertheless, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Jacky shared that GRVTY’s development slowed down as providers tightened their marketing budgets. No matter, they counted on their own fortunate to endure this tough period of time unscathed.

Whilst clientele did scale again on investing, they did not lose any major accounts. 

“We did not lose revenue and much more importantly, we did not drop anyone thanks to finances cuts. We even squeezed out a compact reward for our colleagues during the pandemic,” claimed Johnathan. 

In reality, GRVTY has bounced again much better than at any time this calendar year, as clientele return with even larger budgets. 

“This 12 months is also crucial for us as we had been awarded tenders for both equally Full of Govt (WOG) imaginative providers and media shopping for. It’s a huge milestone, and we intention to scale our staff accordingly to better assistance our clients,” explained Jacky. 

He additional that when they have the capacity to get and ramp up earnings, it is the payment cycle that’s holding them back again. 

Owing to the nature of the company company, when we shut a offer, we operate on the marketing campaign for three to twelve months, and then we have to wait a different three to six months for the payment to arrive in. While the enterprise is financially nutritious and worthwhile, we have significant receivables so cashflow was an situation.

Now that we have this newest injection of funds, we are far more assured to scale the enterprise — to seek the services of a lot more, and do extra. We took this investment decision so we can have space to breathe and be a little bit far more aggressive [with our expansion plans].

– Jacky Yap, co-founder of GRVTY Media.

For the Malaysia business which is helmed by Sarah Enxhi and her staff, the firm has also been profitable and have been acquiring potent guidance from brand names and advertisers.

Through the two decades of motion command orders, GRVTY Media Malaysia has been ready to improve our revenue, retain our talents, give out bonuses and increments. This is thanks to our Vulcan Put up staff in this article in Malaysia who’s set in the function collectively to enable GRVTY prosper, and lots of supportive clientele. I’m looking ahead to much more additional progress and more ideas come to existence with Jacky, John and Kiat.

– Sarah Enxhi, co-founder of GRVTY Media Malaysia.

What’s next for GRVTY?

Despite the fact that Kiat owns the the greater part stake in the corporation, the two founders are nonetheless quite much in control of the business and anything will keep on being the identical operationally. 

The only mandate is that we expand the organization and it has to be lucrative, but which is a aim we previously share. … It’s pretty important for us to be a sustainable corporation so we really don’t have to keep on boosting cash that’s just tense. [This acquisition] is undoubtedly not an endgame for us, consequently why equally founders are staying on.

We just want to improve as substantially as doable — we want to enhance our income, keep our staff content, keep key talents, and draw in much more best abilities.

– Jacky Yap, co-founder of GRVTY Media

Moving ahead, the corporation is seeking to scale its groups and capabilities in its 3 company divisions: media, agency, and progress hacking.

“With the funding, we also aim to double our latest headcount of 36 by up coming 12 months,” claimed Johnathan, incorporating that he individually views GRVTY to be at ‘Phase 3’ of its advancement phase. 

“We are still a very youthful enterprise, and we however have a lot to learn and a large amount of space to increase. As the company matures, a bulk of the fund will be channeled into talent acquisition. We’re wanting to employ the service of persons we (the founders) and the relaxation of our crew can discover from,” he summed up.

Featured Graphic Credit score: GRVTY Media