Align Capital Partners, the private equity firm co-based in Shaker Heights, Ohio, has made an undisclosed investment in a flexible talent marketplace for the advertising and marketing industries.
In its first four years, We Are Rosie in Atlanta, Georgia, has grown to a network of more than 10,000 freelancers (called “Rosies”) who help companies such as Bumble, Meta, IBM and Microsoft leverage the work of their advertising and marketing teams, We Are Rosie said in a press release.
We Are Rosie's founder and CEO, Stephanie Nadi Olson, has retained a significant stake in the company, valued at $110 million through the investment transaction, and will continue to lead it through its next phase of growth, Align Capital said in a release of its own.
"We’ve reached the point where it would be a disservice to We Are Rosie's mission and vision to throttle our growth by staying bootstrapped," said Olson, who quit her ad sales career in 2018 to start Rosie.
We Are Rosie, which employs about 40 people, tripled its revenue in the last year and works with more than 25 Fortune 500 brands and all six major advertising holding companies, Align said.
Rosie will hire another 30 people and scale up its tech operation with the Align investment.
"We’ve rolled out our proprietary 4Ps talent matching tool this year and will be building upon it to inch us closer and closer to a résumé-less future of work," Olson said in an interview with marketing trade journal, The Drum.
Partly because founder Olson grew up in a refugee family, Rosie is known for its diversity, equity and inclusion commitment. More than 40% of placed Rosies identify as Black, indigenous or people of color, the company said.
Rosie has organically built a platform suited to address the growing demand for digital marketing, Align said.
Align Capital is investing in We Are Rosie is it "enters its next phase of growth by further investing in its people and technology to create even more opportunity for underrepresented talent," said Rob Langley, managing partner for the private equity firm.
We Are Rosie is Align Capital's second professional services investment in the last 18 months. The firm invested in WilliamsMarston, the accounting and management advisory consultancy, in July 2020.
