Sorrell's S4Capital Buys Digital Marketer Firewood

Sir Martin Sorrell's marcoms group S4Capital has acquired Silicon Valley-based digital marketing agency Firewood, and is merging it with its digital global content practice MediaMonks, in a transaction valued at $150m.

The group acquired Dutch creative digital production company MediaMonks last year, and says the latest merger is another important step towards delivering a purely digital, first party data-driven programmatic offer for clients worldwide. Sorrell comments: 'Firewood has an enviable client list comprising many of Silicon Valley's finest. We will now have over 1,800 professionals in 23 countries, with over 500 in each of two nodes, one in Silicon Valley and one in Amsterdam'.

Founded in 2010 by Juan and Lanya Zambrano (pictured), Firewood offers a broad range of digital capabilities including creative, strategy and planning, performance media and technology services. Headquartered in San Francisco, the agency employs more than 300 people in seven offices across the Americas and Europe, with other locations in Mountain View, Sandpoint, New York, Dublin, London and Mexico City. The company employs what it describes as a 'pioneering and disruptive' engagement model with its roster of clients, deploying teams of creative and strategic marketing professionals who work as extensions of their clients' internal marketing team.

Lanya Zambrano states: 'This merger is recognition of all our people. We embrace finding diverse talent: as a certified women/minority-owned business enterprise, 38% of our employees are from diverse ethnic backgrounds, 67% are women, and our leadership team is comprised of nearly 64% women. We look forward to developing further a new, disruptive model in the communications industry with MediaMonks and S4Capital as further proof that diversity is an intrinsic part of our industry's future'.

Web sites: www.s4capital.com , www.mediamonks.com and www.firewoodmarketing.com .