Pride Capital Partners invests in growth of Wagawin

Pride Capital Partners backs Wagawin’s international growth and expansion plan. The management team, consisting of the three co-founders Nicolas Leonhardt (CEO), Andreas Merold (CFO) and Christian Buchmayr (CPO), has developed the company tremendously in recent years. What started in 2012 as a mere university project is now a global company with offices in Munich, Singapore and London.

Collecting first party data on the open internet

With its proprietary technology “LivingAds”, Wagawin is able to gather real user feedback on the open internet by adding interactive elements known from social media to video and display ads on mobile websites and apps worldwide. Through Wagawin’s technology, users can, for example, interact directly with mobile advertising via a chat function, respond to advertising content with emoticons, or rate products and services through a swipe mechanism. Advertisers can thus build up extensive and valuable user data pools that not only give them deeper insights into individual user interests, but also help them improve their targeting capabilities. Wagawin’s technology has proven to outperform most current advertising solutions on the open internet.

Growth strategy

Wagawin is well positioned to become a key player in the global advertising industry. Thanks to the significant investment from Pride Capital Partners, Wagawin is now in a position to accelerate its sales activities in Europe and Asia. The company is also looking at the U.S. as another promising market for its technology. With Pride Capital Partners, Wagawin will not only have sufficient resources to incrementally hire many industry professionals, but also to pursue a well-thought-out M&A strategy in the near future.

Lars van ’t Hoenderdaal, Managing Partner Pride Capital Partners:

“We met a young management and entrepreneurial team with a clear vision and a good understanding of the international advertisement space.  This management has proven their abilities to sell their product suite to large customers and build a scalable business model. Pride Capital Partners’ ambition is to assist Wagawin in further rolling out their product worldwide.”

Nicolas Leonhardt, CEO of Wagawin:

“From day one we had high ambitions for Wagawin. With Pride Capital Partners we have found a strong partner which does not only bring all the relevant skills of a professional investor but also stands out with its entrepreneurial hands-on mentality. Together, we are able to grow Wagawin to a leading global technology company in the digital marketing industry”

Andreas Merold, CFO of Wagawin:

“As we have achieved good traction and growth during the last years, we were looking for a financing partner that not only understands our short-term needs but also shares our big vision on the long run. Pride Capital Partners stands out for its professional team, a cooperative partnership, and its clear focus on further growth opportunities.”

About Pride Capital Partners

Pride Capital Partners supports and invests in profitable and growing businesses in the Software and IT industry. By flexibly combining private debt and equity instruments, Pride Capital Partners offers software and IT entrepreneurs tailor-made financing solutions that enable them to realize their growth ambitions. Typical scenarios include growth, acquisitions and management buy-out (MBO) transactions. The focus is on Benelux and DACH-region companies. Pride Capital Partners has offices in Amsterdam, Cologne and Frankfurt.

The funding of Pride Capital Partners is provided by its own shareholders, institutional investors, wealthy individuals, family offices and (former) entrepreneurs. The portfolio includes The Valley, Fairbanks, Spotzer Digital, Fivespark, Bright River, Bluefield, Netaxis, Arcus IT and ScanmarQED and the DACH companies eKomi, Kendox, moveXM and Link11.

About Wagawin

Wagawin provides brands and media agencies the most compelling mobile ad experience whilst unlocking and owning actionable first-party data. With a global team and offices in Munich, Singapore, and London, Wagawin is transforming mobile ads by providing interactive and engaging ad formats that can be used in existing marketing stacks and are built in just minutes. Wagawin is redefining how brands and users can communicate with one another without restrictions. For more information please visit: www.wagawin.com

Press contact Wagawin

Miriam Riordan

E: miriam@wagawin.com

Press contact Pride Capital Partners

Lars van ‘t Hoenderdaal

T: +31 (0)651797111

E: lars@wordpress-247524-2589394.cloudwaysapps.com

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