UK user experience design agencies Foolproof and Flow Interactive have joined forces, boosting their manpower to 70 staff with an initial turnover in excess of £5.5m per annum.
This places the combined business within the top 50 UK digital agencies, based on the recent 2010 New Media Age league table.
The Foolproof and Flow brands are both retained. The expanded business will operate out of two sites: Flow’s existing home at 90-98 Goswell Road, EC1 will become the consolidated London base of the two companies, and Foolproof’s current Norwich office will be retained.
Foolproof’s Peter Ballard and Tom Wood will be majority shareholders of the expanded business, whilst Flow’s owner Meriel Lenfestey will join the shareholder board of Foolproof.
Peter Ballard, Joint Managing Partner of Foolproof, said: “After eight years of successful organic growth, and fresh from our best-ever year, joining forces with Flow will take the business to a completely new level. It will help us capitalise on the clear trend for UX insight and customer-driven innovation to sit right at the heart of clients’ decision-making processes, which gives us a key strategic role within their businesses. This hugely exciting move will make us Europe’s biggest UX agency, and gives us the capabilities and critical mass to become a truly global force in the digital experience design space.”
Meriel Lenfestey, Founder and CEO of Flow, commented: “Combining two successful experience design businesses delivers a great result for the clients, staff and shareholders of both companies. This has very much been reflected in the positive feedback we’ve already received.
“This is very much a move for growth. Our greater capacity means we can continue to deliver the very highest levels of quality in experience design support to our clients, while ensuring that we also capitalise on the many new business opportunities currently coming our way, both in the UK and from overseas.”
There are not expected to be any job losses as a result of the deal – in fact the continued high demand for insight-driven design expertise means that there are immediate vacancies within the account management and UX consultancy teams.
www.foolproof.co.uk
www.flow-interactive.com