WeWork acquires an orchestral conductor.
The two companies might not seem obvious. Why would a coworking giant buy a company better known for its SEO?
Well, Seth Besmertnik, co-founder and CEO of Conductor, said that Adam Neumann, CEO of WeWork, went to college together and that they "continued to reconnect and reconnect over the years". services of others.
WeWork President and Chief Financial Officer Artie Minson developed this idea in a statement sent by email:
There are many things that make WeWork and Conductor a natural choice. Seth and his team have built Conductor to provide the knowledge, education, and resources that their clients need to succeed – in other words, Conductor helps his clients do what they like and do. to do it better. Conductor made it easy for us to reach potential WeWork members looking for a workspace. It has also helped us to showcase the services and amenities we offer to businesses of all sizes.
And now that Conductor is part of WeWork, Besmertnik said: "We will build a marketing cloud to go after the corporate market."
Besmertnik argued that "research data is human data", so it makes sense to use this data to fuel content creation – and the company was already adding content marketing tools to its base product. For the future, Conductor plans to develop other types of marketing and advertising.
He added that this should not change anything for current Conductor customers.
"It's only going to get better," Besmertnik said. "We will invest in the product even more aggressively."
Conductor will continue to operate as an independent company, with his own clients, and Besmertnik will continue to serve as CEO. At the same time, he will look for ways to bundle his services for WeWork's Enterprise customers. (And these are truly huge businesses – WeWork says its Enterprise members include 22% of the Fortune 500.)
WeWork's two most recent acquisitions were Flatiron School and Meetup, which also continue to operate as independent companies.
According to Crunchbase, Conductor raised more than $ 60 million in total financing from investors such as Matrix Partners, Firstmark, Capital Growth Investor, Blue Cloud Ventures and Catalyst Investors. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Besmertnik described the deal as "a great result for everyone."
The two companies also discuss the transaction in their own blog
Image of the hotel: WeWork