Inflexion sells The Goat Agency to trade, nets 80% IRR

Min Ho
22 March 2023

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Inflexion has sold its minority stake in The Goat Agency, a social media marketing group, to marketing agency WPP, generating 80% IRR on the investment, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The sale of The Goat Agency, which speicalises in influencer marketing campaigns, marks the first exit for Inflexion's lower-mid market Enterprise Fund V, according to a statement.

Inflexion Enterprise Fund V held a final close in April 2019 on its hard-cap of GBP 400m, according to Unquote Data. The sector-agnostic fund targets companies in the UK lower mid-market, writing equity cheques of GBP 10m-GBP 75m.

Inflexion made a minority investment in 2021 alongside Goat's co-founders Arron Shepherd, Nick Cooke and Harry Hugo. It subsequently supported the business' expansion plans, with a core focus on the North American market, according to a statement.

Goat will join GroupM, WPP's media investment group, and merge with its influencer marketing solution INCA to create the industry's first global influencer marketing agency with more than 300 employees in more than 30 markets around the world.

Inflexion's exit follows other realisations from its Enterprise strategy, including Virgin Experience Days, a provider of experience gifts, as well as Halo, an optical networking business, both of which were held in its 2016-vintage Fund IV and were sold in 2022 and 2021 respectively.

Inflexion declined to comment.

Company
Goat delivers social and influencer campaigns for brands including Dell, Beiersdorf, Meta, Tesco, Uber, EA, Natura and Augustinus Bader, via the company's 150 staff across three offices. Since its foundation in 2015, Goat has tracked the performance of more then 50,000 influencer channels and more than 250,000 pieces of content.

People
Inflexion - Malcolm Coffin (head of the Enterprise Fund), Tom Pemberton (partner and head of consumer), James Stevens (investment director) and David Collins (investment executive).
Goat - Arron Shepherd (co-Founder and CEO), Nick Cooke (co-founder) and Harry Hugo (co-founder).
WPP - Christian Juhl (Global CEO of GroupM), Mark Read (CEO).

Advisers
Advent -GP Bullhound (corporate finance), Slaughter & May (legal lead), DWF (legal) and Eversheds (banking); EY (financial DD); PwC (tax).