A Golden Opportunity for this Electric Guitar
“…We’ve got to help advertisers rebuild their data infrastructure and change the way they relate to people about their data…”
Since listing in January, Electric Guitar has ‘three or four’ potential acquisition targets in its sights, and conversations include a first-in-the-room audience with one business putting itself up for sale.
As a special purpose acquisition company, Electric was never intended to be a one-purchase project with the first acquisition establishing a platform from which to embed all that follows.
It’s focusing on the realms of data privacy which chief executive John Regan says affects the fuel of advertising targets. It’s all changing and therein lies the opportunity. “We’ve got to help advertisers rebuild their data infrastructure and change the way they relate to people about their data.”
Having built four businesses, he understands first-hand the challenges of scale, tech and talent, and with success in his pocket, financial acumen and the experience of the board, Regan is confident Electric can help the acquired achieve their aspirations.
Regan knows there are competitors possibly eyeing the same targets. He cites management buyout teams talking to private equity through to S4 Capital, or Brainlabs which calls itself the smartest digital marketing agency in the world and the globally tentacled Jellyfish Group.
Formidable competition, but Electric is positioning itself as a provider of a business and not pure investment strategy. He’s been there, done it, invested his own money and been bought out himself.
He’s judicious about how investor money is being deployed in the search for companies that would be the right fit. In the first place he says companies will be placed in the UK or at a stretch in Europe such as Amsterdam. They will be stable and secure with minimum revenue generation of £10 million with a very clear path to profitability. Those are the ideal metrics though there is wiggle room.
The pool of potentials is being narrowed down to those involved with marketing data or media related products, machine data analytics, customer relationship management platforms with fast growth, and clients coming through the door which will allow Electric to scale the business rapidly and globally.
As he explains to Sarah Lowther, Regan has mind mapped what the ideal structure of Electric Guitar will look like in three to five years, when he says the company will be “showing its true worth.”
Follow the company on Twitter @guitar_ltd
Read the company’s IPO prospectus
The author was remunerated but does not hold shares in the company
