Little Room, a digital agency founded in 2011, has merged with a fellow Toronto startup, Sascea, a developer of custom business apps established in 2010.
The combined company, Sascea Group Inc., will be headed by president Joey Caturay (previously president of Little Room) and CEO Nick Kapov (founder of Sascea). There are no plans for staff departures, but they’re hiring for five new positions immediately. The team is now approximately 25-people strong.
Although it may seem unusual for a marketing agency to merge with a software maker, the decision naturally evolved from a history of collaboration.
Initially, Little Room hired Sascea to build software for specific projects. “They were using them as a tech partner to execute some of the more complicated stuff, like loyalty programs. On the surface those may seem like just a mobile app, but behind the scenes they require a specific [technological] skill set,” explained CTO Clint Robinson, who worked at Sascea before joining Little Room and was the one who introduced the two companies to each other.
While partnering on these projects, Sascea took notice of Little Room’s own strengths in user interface/experience (UI/UX) and began contracting them for work.
Little Room has created mobile apps, advertising and other digital specialties for clients such as Nissan, Cadillac Fairview, Sony, Topshop and The Hudson’s Bay Company.
“The merger is very synergistic. We have clients on the Little Room side, and clients on the Sascea side, and now we’ve got this tremendous cross-selling opportunity to offer more services to both sides,” said Robinson.
Sascea has been developing custom software for government agencies and Fortune 500 companies, but in 2014 it will begin rolling out its first product, The Big Picture, for wide release. “It’s back-office software geared at marketing, design and tech agencies to help them run their companies,” Robinson said. “It’s not for doing mass e-mails, SEM or SEO, but for HR, invoicing and project management.”
