An Indianapolis-based marketing tech firm with a St. Petersburg presence plans to up its local commitment after closing an eight-figure deal.
TrendyMinds, which counts Salesforce and Humana among its clients, received the investment from San Antonio-headquartered Contour Ridge. The deal began after TrendyMinds’ CEO Trevor Yager retained a New York-based mergers and acquisition group to find a financial partner for the company.
“During Covid, I moved here with my partner, got adjusted to the Florida weather and had to decide, ‘Do I want to spend every afternoon at my pool or keep doing stuff?’” Yager said. “I’m only 47 and said I want to see what’s next for TrendyMinds.”
This is the first investment in TrendyMinds’ 27-year history and will be used for hiring and expansion. It plans to open a St. Pete location, either downtown or on Central Avenue, and will also open a San Antonio office.
“We want to have something this year [in St. Pete],” he said, adding the company is working with a local real estate broker. “So it’s finding the right spot, making sure we can build something that’s there that we would like and that team members would like.”
The company has roughly 90 employees, with more than 15 of those in the Tampa Bay region. It is remote-first and has employees spanning 10 states. Its goal is to add 100 more employees each year for the next five years, some of those being local.
“I think St. Pete is an untapped market,” Yager said. “We’re finding some good people and definitely see it as an opportunity. What we found is you don’t have to be in New York or Los Angeles or London to provide very good work.”
Yager also has plans for the company’s acquisition activity, which could bleed into the local ecosystem. It’s looking at companies in marketing or complementary industries, such as the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.
“We already have a lot of the funding lined up; we’re ready to buy now as the right fit happens,” Yager said, adding he hopes to have two to three acquisitions per year. “We also have our M&A group that represented us — they have a whole pipeline of companies that they’re able to bring to us, so we’re working with them to find potential fits.”
