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- Company
Colours
- SectorTMT
- ActivityDigital agency
- Date11 December 2017
- CountryNetherlands
Colours, Mangrove and Redhotminute merge backed by ABN AMRO Participaties into 'We Are You.'
Colours, a digital agency founded in 1997, has been serving Holland’s most recognizable organizations with improving their results by employing digital resources. About 100 employees are continuously realizing and optimizing digital user experience together with customers. Colours works for a.o. Eneco, Stedin, Schouten & Nelissen, De Goudse Verzekeringen and Vitens.
Redhotminute,, founded in 2001, employs 100 professionals that create, design and develop websites, apps and e-commerce platforms. From strategy to online marketing and managed hosting in platforms like Sitecore, Umbraco, OutSystems and Xamarin. Redhotminute works together with well-known customers like Efteling, Landal GreenParks, Kia, Toyota, Van Gansewinkel and Van der Valk Exclusief in order to realize the best possible user experience.
Mangrove was, just like Colours, founded in 1997. Nowadays, Mangrove is a leading player in the market, with customers like Unicef, the Dutch Heart Foundation, the Red Cross (internationally), KNMI, Utrecht University, TU Delft, Omron, Essent and Stayokay. Mangrove employs 35 digital professionals that are very strong in the creative and strategic area. They develop the best customer journeys, user experience and designs.
For more than 25 years, ABN AMRO Participaties has been providing equity funding to mid-sized, Dutch companies with a solid market position, clear growth potential and committed management. It provides equity tickets between €5 million and €30 million through investment funds from ABN-AMRO Bank and has already completed 50 successful transactions.
Digital agencies Colours, Mangrove and Redhotminute have merged and together form a new organization backed by ABN AMRO AMRO Participaties. The labels are brought together under the new umbrella ‘We Are You’ and will continue to operate independently. The new combination realizes revenues of almost €25 million and ensures that customers can expect even more flexibility and digital expertise. With close to 250 professionals, We Are You now belongs to the top of the Dutch market. Colours and Redhotminute both are leading players in realization and optimization of .NET platforms Sitecore and Umbraco, whereas Mangrove is leading at strategy and creation.
The merger of Colours, Redhotminute and Mangrove under the umbrella We Are You was born out of a growing need of existing and new customers. The digitalization of large organizations asks for more expertise and a large number of professionals. Marc van Helden, CEO of Redhotminute, explains: “We were looking flexibility and more scalability. Because the technology that Redhotminute and Colours use overlap for more than 90%, together we have a much larger team in the same area. Culture wise, there is a good fit as well. We both work with agile/scrum and work in a self-organizing cell structure.”
“To realize digital impact is our shared drive”, says Jorg Verweij, CEO of Colours, which already acquired Mangrove earlier this year. ”We all have the same approach and clear focus on quality instead of diversification. Relationships with customers are intensifying because of the importance of digital within their organizations. We work for increasingly larger clients, a lot of companies with large customer databases, for whom their digital processes have become their core processes”. Marc van Helden adds: “Our customers’ questions are getting larger and they are, rightfully, more demanding. To give you an idea: last week, a customer called and asked if we could double the team working for them. To meet this sort of demand, you need quality, flexibility and clout.”
Both companies were looking for a strategic partner and were on each other’s’ shortlist. Verweij: “It’s not a coincidence we found each other. Together we have an enormous amount of digital experience and over the last 15 years, we both have shaped the transition from digital postbox to (co-)creating the core business process.”
All three companies will continue to operate as independent sister companies under the We Are You flag. Jorg Verweij will be CEO of We Are You and will continue to lead Colours and Mangrove. Marc van Helden will remain responsible for further developing Redhotminute. Paul Hinze, COO of We Are You, will focus on finance and the buy-and-build strategy. Paul is very positive about the joint future: “We can now even better help large, ambitious organizations to accomplish their digital objectives.”
For more information: Colours, Redhotminute and Mangrove
