When the Covid-19 pandemic began, Tampa-based Sparxoo's CEO David Capece immediately began reaching out to other digital marketing agencies to see how they were faring.
"I wanted to get a sense of benchmarking, see how were they doing and what were they hearing," Capece said in an interview with Tampa Bay Inno. "And through that process, I found out we were actually doing a bit better than other agencies. I realized in those moments when we came out of the pandemic, I wanted to take Sparxoo to the next level."
Capece did not know if that meant through a partnership, acquiring other companies or acquisition of Sparxoo itself. But after speaking with St. Petersburg-based marketing technology company Big Sea, an acquisition deal was struck. On Tuesday, Big Sea announced it is buying Sparxoo for an undisclosed amount.
"Our clients are asking for deeper strategy and more thorough research, and we’re excited to grow our capabilities and consultative services to do just that,” Andi Graham, CEO and managing partner of Big Sea, said in a statement. “Knowing we have the team to execute across the vast digital landscape, we can develop even more innovative and effective campaign strategies.”
The company brings together 42 employees and has combined annual revenue of roughly $6 million. Big Sea will bring in Sparxoo's full team, software and processes.
"It's a really big opportunity for the combined Big Sea team," Capece said. "One of the things that attracted me to the conversation was the chance to be a market leader in the Tampa Bay region, then to take it across Florida and the Southeast."
However, Capece will be watching the growth from the outside. He plans to stay on the new Big Sea team during the acquisition period, then leave to pursue CROOW, a software company he launched in April 2020. It originally provided creative collaboration software primarily for marketing and design businesses. But over the last two years, Capece found video is the new medium to focus on.
"I found with video there was a pretty big opportunity," he said. "People said, 'We need more video, and we’ll pay a good amount for one to two videos, but the other ones we need to be cheaper.'"
CROOW now offers software and workflow for videos, reducing cost by 70% and keeping the video quality at 95%. The company is in the process of raising a seed round for an undisclosed amount, although Capece estimates it will be oversubscribed.
"It's still CROOW with the collaboration platform but now it's video first, creative second," he said. "We honed into the problem that's a lot more unique and uniquely useful."
A previous version of this story stated Sparxoo is located in St. Petersburg. It is headquartered in Tampa.
