Washington, DC, June 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Collage Group, the leading source of cultural intelligence about diverse consumers announced that it has raised $25 million in growth capital led by Boston-based growth equity firm Wavecrest Growth Partners with participation from industry veteran and investor Dennis Ainge. The new funding will be used to further accelerate growth through additional investments in sales and marketing and through continued focus on its data science and technology platform.
“As America’s demographic landscape continues to shift through the accelerated growth of diverse consumers, it is imperative for brands to deeply understand this cultural transformation across race, ethnicity, generation, sexuality, and family relationships,” said David Wellisch, Collage Group CEO and Co-Founder. “Collage Group was founded on this mission–to help corporations unleash the power of culture to drive brand growth. I could not be more excited to partner with Wavecrest and Dennis Ainge to accelerate our growth and invest behind our technology and data to continue to support our brand partners in their journey toward Cultural Fluency.”
Founded in 2009, Bethesda, Maryland-based Collage Group’s Cultural Intelligence Platform, the leading SaaS product in the space, includes four unique data and information offerings–Multicultural, Generations, LGBTQ+ & Gender and Parents & Kids. The insights and best practices available in the Platform, as well as Collage Group’s custom research and advisory solutions, offer 250 of America’s iconic brands the support needed to effectively engage and connect with diverse America, while also enjoying incremental ROI from these efforts.
“The spending power of diverse consumers represents most of the potential growth opportunity for America’s leading B2C brands,” said Deepak Sindwani, Managing Partner at Wavecrest. “Furthermore, the current U.S. social environment necessitates a greater understanding of the wants and needs of these consumers. We believe Collage Group provides an essential data and service offering to empower and enable revenue growth, and its traction with over 250 top brands speaks for itself. We’re very excited to be partnering with David and his team to help them capitalize on the market opportunity. Our investment will continue to fuel the company’s growth by expanding the depth of their team, their technological infrastructure and product innovation, and their sales and marketing efforts.”
This is the first round of institutional funding for Collage Group. Since its founding, the investments that have fueled its hypergrowth–by more than 50% each year during the last 3 years–were both internally generated and from private investors.
“During the past seven years, I’ve watched David assemble an incredible team of professionals who have a passion for evangelizing the benefits of Collage Group’s unique solutions for America’s top brands,” added investor Dennis Ainge, a founding executive of TARGUSinfo and former Neustar executive. “The strength of this team, Collage Group’s existing and planned solutions, and the combined value-add of the Wavecrest team guarantees a very bright future for Collage Group and the more than 250 brands they support.”
ABOUT COLLAGE GROUP
Collage Group is the leading source of cultural intelligence about diverse consumers to more than 250 of America’s iconic brands across 15 industries. For more than 10 years, Collage Group has developed consumer insights across race and ethnicity, generation, sexual identity, gender and parent-child relationships with a focus on high-growth consumer segments. Members of the Collage Group Cultural Intelligence Programs–Multicultural, Generations, LGBTQ+ & Gender and Parents & Kids–have access to 10+ years of consumer insights and 300+ studies with new data unveiled weekly. Learn more about why America’s iconic brands turn to Collage Group for diverse consumer insights and best practices.
ABOUT WAVECREST GROWTH PARTNERS
Wavecrest Growth Partners is a growth equity firm focused on investing in and partnering with leading B2B software and technology-enabled services companies. Wavecrest targets investments in high-growth companies with proven products and business models and brings to bear a differentiated combination of investing and operating experience and networks to help accelerate growth and profitability. Wavecrest's team has over five decades of collective investing and operating experience in growth-stage B2B technology companies, including numerous successful outcomes. For more information, visit www.wavecrestgrowth.com
