The Goat Agency (“Goat”) is a leading influencer and social media marketing agency focused on helping big brands to effectively engage with influencer marketing. In 2021, Inflexion's Enterprise Fund partnered with Goat to support and help accelerate its growth in a rapidly expanding global opportunity. It partnered with the business for two years until its sale to WPP in 2023.
Sector
Business services, Consumer
Headquarters
London, UK
Fund
Enterprise
Investment date
March 2021 - March 2023
Status
Realised
Goat specialises in data-led end-to-end influencer and social media marketing campaigns grounded in performance and measurement and was founded by Arron Shepherd, Nick Cooke, and Harry Hugo in 2015. Goat drives authentic brand engagement while integrating targeted paid media to reach the right audience and achieve industry-leading results. The company's 150+ staff across three global offices have helped to grow some of the biggest brands in the world, including Dell, Beiersdorf, Meta, Tesco, Uber, EA, Natura and Augustinus Bader, delivering best-in-class social and influencer campaigns. Since its founding, Goat has tracked the performance of over 50,000 influencer channels and over 250,000 pieces of content.
The Goat Agency Co-founder Arron Shepherd and Inflexion Partner Tom Pemberton discuss the power of social media and share how Goat utilises data to help businesses drive social and influencer strategy.
Inflexion backed Goat’s co-founders with a significant minority investment in 2021 and supported the business through a period of rapid growth and internationalisation. Headcount grew substantially during this time as Inflexion and management invested into Goat’s cost base to support rapid growth.
The Inflexion team supported the business to expand globally, with a core focus on the North American market, as well as benefitting from secular market growth drivers. Inflexion’s Digital team worked closely with management throughout the two-year investment period, to embed the use of technology and data into Goat’s proposition. Goat was sold in 2023 to WPP, the world's largest advertising company.
Arron Shepherd, Co-Founder, Goat
Press releases
