October 11 (SeeNews) - Romanian online marketing agency Canopy said on Thursday it has acquired local peer Edge from affiliate marketing company 2Performant.
Following the acquisition, which is expected to be completed in the last quarter of 2018, Canopy becomes the first Pay Per Click agency in Romania to integrate a similar company, consolidating its leadership position, it said in a press release.
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The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
The deal involves the takeover of the Edge brand and the integration of its client portfolio. Among the brands that will enter the Canopy portfolio are Provident, FruFru, Arsis and Continental Hotels. They will join Sephora, Chicco, Stone Online, UiPath, DPAP, SanoVita, Smart Bill and Edenred, which are already in the buyer's client portfolio.
"By increasing the investment in PPC advertising we manage for current customers, coupled with the integration of new brands, Canopy becomes market leader with an estimated advertising budget on Google and Facebook platforms at 6 million euro ($6.9 million) for this year," Canopy founder and CEO, Cristian Ignat, said.
After expanding with an office in Iasi and developing services with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions, this is a new step by which Canopy confirms its constant interest in evolving as a business and supporting online marketing in Romania, Ignat added.
In the first eight months of 2018, Canopy's turnover increased by 56% year-on-year. At present, the company has 24 employees, seven of whom are located in its Iasi office.
"We made this decision as a result of a change in the 2Performant strategy - there is a period of accelerated development of our platform and we decided to focus entirely on building our own technology and services related to its use," the CEO of 2Performant, Dorin Boerescu, said.
Edge agency was launched in 2016 and offers various services such as paid search, social performance monitoring, conversion optimization and programmatic trading.
The technology infrastructure built by Egde's former owner 2Performant currently serves over 600 customers in Romania and abroad. In 2017, 2Performant recorded total revenues of approximately 13.5 million lei ($3.3 million/ 2.9 million euro).
(1 euro=4.6674 lei)