GRVTY Media acquired by Towerhill, raises funding to boost growth

Singapore-primarily based media business GRVTY Media introduced nowadays (July 29) that Towerhill — the expenditure auto of Kiat Lim, who is the son of billionaire Peter Lim — has acquired a the greater part stake of the firm for an undisclosed volume.

Aspect of the offer is a income injection, which will be applied to gasoline the company’s development.

Founded in April 2017, GRVTY Media is a innovative company and electronic media team that homes Vulcan Post, VP Label, Millennials of Singapore, and The Day-to-day Ketchup. GRVTY Media also has a regional place of work at Malaysia which homes Vulcan Submit Malaysia and Find KL.

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

What led to the acquisition?

Jacky Yap, co-founder of GRVTY Media, explained to Vulcan Submit that via one particular of his quite a few jobs, Kiat received acquainted with the company and had a likelihood to far better realize its media and company abilities.

This opened the door to several other “synergistic” business alternatives. Specially, Kiat sought GRVTY’s assist in the various corporations he is concerned in, which includes Thomson Health-related Team, NFT community ARC, and electronic football system zujuGP. 

As business enterprise relations and billings grew, Kiat initiated the dialogue on a probable acquisition.

“Our original response was, ‘let’s just see exactly where this goes’. We have gained a number of other acquisition provides, but this just one feels more genuine for the reason that of our present connection and friendship. The full thing wrapped up really rapidly – inside of two months, they verified their broad selection to obtain and then we begun doing work as a result of the numbers,” shared Johnathan Chua, co-founder of GRVTY. 

When requested why past acquisition gives didn’t go by way of, he cited two important motives: there were being no strategic gains for GRVTY, and they experienced obtained “lowball” provides. 

For this individual acquisition offer, the founders made it pretty distinct that the rationale they accepted the present is mainly because they can see that it will support them “take much better care” of their workers, which includes superior salaries, and bringing in more senior hires who can add their prosperity of practical experience.

We see a lot of strategic price in the acquisition for numerous explanations. Kiat is clearly effectively-connected, enabling us entry to new business options. With the extra funding, it will allow us to scale quicker inspite of a achievable looming economic downturn. I individually search up to Kiat and he thinks in our enterprise. Even just before the acquisition, we have experienced lots of discussions at length as to how Jacky and I can even more improve GRVTY Media, and now, I’m happy we’re heading to mature it together.

– Johnathan Chua, co-founder of GRVTY Media

Individually, Kiat instructed Vulcan Post that he has witnessed GRVTY’s dependable and high calibre of get the job done high-quality and competence throughout their functioning relationship. 

“Having worked with John, Jacky, Sarah and the staff more than the course of the previous calendar year, their do the job ethics strongly resonated with me. I am very pleased to have them, the skills they have nurtured, and the makes they’ve constructed to be a part of our ecosystem and I glance forward to taking the GRVTY model to the next amount,” expressed Kiat.

​​It’s time to get “aggressive” with their growth plans

In accordance to the founders, GRVTY Media savored a powerful get started — it was lucrative from the initially month, and they reached near to S$2 million in profits in their initial 12 months as partners again in 2017.

Nonetheless, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Jacky shared that GRVTY’s expansion slowed down as businesses tightened their advertising and marketing budgets. Irrespective, they counted on their own lucky to endure this difficult period of time unscathed.

Despite the fact that clients did scale back on investing, they did not get rid of any major accounts. 

“We did not reduce revenue and more importantly, we did not eliminate any individual owing to funds cuts. We even squeezed out a little bonus for our colleagues through the pandemic,” mentioned Johnathan. 

In fact, GRVTY has bounced back more powerful than ever this yr, as shoppers return with more substantial budgets. 

“This yr is also crucial for us as we were awarded tenders for both of those Whole of Authorities (WOG) creative services and media buying. It is a big milestone, and we aim to scale our staff accordingly to improved service our customers,” explained Jacky. 

He extra that when they have the potential to get and ramp up earnings, it is the payment cycle that’s keeping them again. 

Due to the mother nature of the company small business, when we close a deal, we get the job done on the campaign for three to twelve months, and then we have to wait around an additional a few to six months for the payment to arrive in. Though the enterprise is economically healthier and lucrative, we have superior receivables so cashflow was an concern.

Now that we have this newest injection of cash, we are extra self-confident to scale the firm — to hire far more, and do a lot more. We took this financial commitment so we can have home to breathe and be a little more intense [with our expansion plans].

– Jacky Yap, co-founder of GRVTY Media.

For the Malaysia place of work which is helmed by Sarah Enxhi and her group, the company has also been rewarding and have been receiving potent assist from manufacturers and advertisers.

Throughout the two years of motion manage orders, GRVTY Media Malaysia has been ready to increase our profits, keep our abilities, give out bonuses and increments. This is thanks to our Vulcan Post team below in Malaysia who’s put in the get the job done alongside one another to assistance GRVTY prosper, and numerous supportive consumers. I’m seeking ahead to far more a lot more development and more tips occur to daily life with Jacky, John and Kiat.

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

What’s next for GRVTY?

Although Kiat owns the bulk stake in the corporation, the two founders are continue to quite significantly in manage of the organization and anything will continue to be the exact same operationally. 

The only mandate is that we expand the firm and it has to be profitable, but which is a target we presently share. … It is pretty crucial for us to be a sustainable company so we never have to preserve on increasing cash that’s just nerve-racking. [This acquisition] is unquestionably not an endgame for us, for this reason why both equally founders are being on.

We just want to increase as considerably as probable — we want to maximize our income, continue to keep our workforce satisfied, retain crucial talents, and bring in extra prime talents.

– Jacky Yap, co-founder of GRVTY Media

Shifting forward, the enterprise is seeking to scale its groups and abilities in its a few enterprise divisions: media, company, and growth hacking.

“With the funding, we also intention to double our present headcount of 36 by upcoming yr,” reported Johnathan, including that he individually views GRVTY to be at ‘Phase 3’ of its development phase. 

“We are even now a really younger enterprise, and we still have a good deal to understand and a large amount of area to expand. As the corporation matures, a bulk of the fund will be channeled into expertise acquisition. We’re looking to hire persons we (the founders) and the relaxation of our team can understand from,” he summed up.

Highlighted Impression Credit history: GRVTY Media