Press Release | Technology & Business Solutions (TABS)

Bynder Announces Majority Investment from Thomas H. Lee Partners

December 20, 2022

Partnership will support continued product innovation and customer growth

AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Bynder (“the company”), a global leader in Digital Asset Management (DAM), today announced that it will receive a majority investment from Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. (“THL”), a premier private equity firm investing in growth companies. The partnership will accelerate Bynder’s ability to help brands overcome the complexity of proliferating content, enabling delivery of exceptional content experiences and unlocking revenue growth. As part of the transaction, THL will acquire Insight Partners’ stake in Bynder. The transaction is expected to close in early 2023.

Bynder is headquartered in Amsterdam, with major office hubs in the United States, Spain, UK, Australia, and UAE. The company’s powerful, intuitive, and deeply integrated DAM platform unifies and transforms the creation, management, and distribution of marketing assets. Its scalable, cloud-native platform helps thousands of companies, including Spotify, Puma, Five Guys and Icelandair, power better digital customer experiences.

“Bynder is the pure-play market leader in a category that we believe has become foundational for executing digital marketing at scale,” said Cliff Longley and Jeff Swenson, managing directors at THL. “Its technology helps brands of all sizes deepen relationships with their customers and drive revenue growth.”

“DAM is mission-critical to brands looking to thrive in the digital economy,” said Bob Hickey, CEO of Bynder. “Our platform is proven to help companies gain efficiencies, increase speed of execution, maximize their marketing and digital investments, and ultimately gain a competitive advantage. Today’s announcement will accelerate our growth through product innovation and continued investment in our partner ecosystem, enabling us to scale with our customers and help even more brands deliver exceptional content experiences.”

THL’s partnership with Bynder builds on THL’s investment franchise in SaaS products that enable sales, marketing, and commerce. THL is also an investor in Bazaarvoice, a full-funnel shopper engagement platform that powers the collection, curation, and display of user-generated content like ratings and reviews, photos, and videos; and inriver, a leading provider of Product Information Management (PIM) software.

“We’ve devoted considerable time and resources to understanding the technology needs of marketing and sales organizations,” said Jim Carlisle, managing director at THL, and head of both Technology & Business Solutions and the THL Automation Fund. “We’re excited to apply that experience to support Bynder in helping its customers grow their businesses.”

Chris Hall, who founded Bynder in 2013 and will continue to serve on its board, said, “Bynder has grown from a bespoke solution we delivered to fulfill the need of a single customer 10 years ago, to a $100m ARR business employing 500 Byndies, and serving 1.7 million users at nearly 4,000 brands across the world. With the announcement of this new partnership, we can deliver even more value to our current and future customers.”

THL will invest in Bynder through both its flagship Fund IX and the THL Automation Fund, the private equity industry’s first fund dedicated to automation-related businesses.

Arma Partners and Lincoln International acted as financial advisors to Bynder on this transaction. William Blair & Company acted as financial advisor to THL.

About Bynder

Bynder goes far beyond managing digital assets. The digital asset management platform enables teams to conquer the chaos of proliferating content, touchpoints, and relationships in order to thrive. With powerful and intuitive solutions that embrace the way people want to work and a richly integrated ecosystem, Bynder is the brand ally that unifies and transforms the creation and sharing of assets, inspiring teams, delighting customers, and elevating businesses.

Bynder’s 500+ employees, known as ‘Byndies’, together constitute the world’s most extensive pool of digital asset management expertise. Bynder enables more than 1.7M users across nearly 4,000 organizations, including Spotify, Puma, Five Guys and Icelandair. Founded in 2013, Bynder has eight offices around the globe, including the Netherlands, US, Spain, UK, Australia, and UAE.

About Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P.

Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. (“THL”) is a premier private equity firm investing in middle-market growth companies exclusively within three sectors: Healthcare, Financial Technology & Services, and Technology & Business Solutions. THL couples deep sector expertise through an Identified Sector Opportunity (“ISO”) process with dedicated internal operating resources from its Strategic Resource Group (“SRG”) to transform and build great companies of lasting value in partnership with management. The Firm’s domain expertise and resources help to build great companies with an aim to accelerate growth, improve operations and drive long-term sustainable value. Since 1974, THL has raised more than $34 billion of equity capital, invested in over 160 companies and completed more than 500 add-on acquisitions representing an aggregate enterprise value at acquisition of over $210 billion.