Transformation consultancy Kin + Carta acquires Denver's Spire Digital

Kin + Carta, a London-based digital transformation consulting firm, has acquired Spire Digital, a Denver-based digital product studio.

Kin + Carta helps clients across industries invent, market, and operate new digital services and products, focusing on the pillars of strategy, innovation, and communications. The firm has a global team of 1,500 strategists and creatives operating in Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

The firm’s acquisition of Spire digital is part of its strategy to expand its client offering and geographic reach. Spire will be rolled into Kin + Carta’s innovation pillar, which is the fastest-growing part of its business, and currently represents more than half of annual revenues. The acquisition will provide a “strategic foothold” for Kin + Carta in the western United States, complementing the firm’s US headquarters location in Chicago.

“Spire has a strong reputation of delivering highly innovative solutions and building a winning culture that's hard to find. We're looking forward to bringing the Spire Digital team into the Kin + Carta Connective," said J. Schwan, CEO of Kin + Carta.

Spire Digital was founded in 1998, and since then has served more than 400 enterprise clients. The digital product development firm provides strategic consulting, user experience design, custom software development, DevOps, digital marketing, and staff augmentation services. The fast-growing firm has annual revenues of $9.4 million, with a revenue CAGR of more than 20% from 2015 to 2019.

Spire’s team is comprised of more than 100 professionals. President Adam Hasemeyer and COO Nick Coppolo will remain as senior managers, while Spire founder Mike Gellman will remain as an advisor.

“We've grown Spire significantly in recent years and have established a strong reputation in the western US DX market. To realize our fullest potential, we recognized that we needed a partner with deeper resources and a broad geographic reach. We scouted the market from the largest global firms to niche players and decided on Kin + Carta as the perfect choice for Spire,” said Hasemeyer.

Kin + Carta will pay an initial cash consideration of $14.8 million, with a first earnout of 8x Spire’s EBITDA for the 12 months ending December 2019 (less the initial consideration), and a second earnout of 7x Spire’s EBITDA for the 12 months ending in December 2019.