Digital production studio Thinkingbox has landed its first outside investor, an affiliate of Canadian private investment firm Stern Partners, to help the company speed up its global growth plan.
Thinkingbox founder and CEO Amir Sahba, who has bootstrapped the company’s growth to date, says he chose Stern Partners because of its commitment to not tinker with the brand, while helping to provide the company with mentorship and support as it expands its services, which include post-production, virtual reality (VR), animation and 3D content.
“When we met with Stern Partners, we really felt it was a match made in heaven,” Sahba tells Marketing.
Not only is Stern headquartered in Vancouver, where Thinkingbox is based, but Sahba also says the firm has a reputation for allowing its businesses to “do their own thing,” and not push for an exit through a sale of the companies in which it invests.
That was key to Sahba, who started out as a freelancer graphic designer working in his parents’ basement before founding the company six years ago. He has grown it to more than 80 people across three offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles.
“We want to keep our identity, our aggressiveness, our growth and our DNA. We feel Stern not only allows us to do that, but gave us tremendous support in our business that, as a young company, we might not otherwise have had,” says Sahba, who was selected as part of Marketing‘s 2015 30 Under 30 list of rising industry stars.
The growth will include opening new offices in Dubai this summer and a location somewhere in Europe next year, which has yet to be determined.
Thinkingbox has done work for a wide-range of brands including Audi, Coca-Cola and Molson Canadian, for movie companies such as Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures and for agencies such as OMD and DDB.
Sahba says the company is looking to expand not only by landing new clients, but also acquiring “complimentary companies,” in cities where it doesn’t yet have offices.
“This investment has helped us see that the bigger picture can be a reality for us,” Sahba says. “We always had the dream and hope to become a global production studio. This made that a realization.”
He wouldn’t say how much Stern invested in the company, or how many board seats it received in the deal, only that it is “one of the key shareholders.” Sahba says he’s still the majority owner.
Ronald Stern, president of Stern Partners, said in a release that his firm has a reputation “as a committed investor dedicated to growth and value creation.”
“Our focus is on the quality of the business and its management – not the exit strategy,” he said. “We have invested in Thinkingbox because we believe in its people and its long term potential.”
Stern owns 20 independently managed companies across industries such as media, retail, distribution and manufacturing.
