The Digital Marketing Institute has announced a €26m investment led by Spectrum Equity, which the Irish venture is planning to use to further its international reach.
DMI was founded as a digital marketing educator in Dublin in 2008 by Anthony Quigley and Ian Dodson. Since then, DMI has become the global certification standard in digital marketing and digital sales education. More than 18,000 people around the world have completed its learning programmes, which are offered online and via education partners.
The €26m funding round was led by Spectrum Equity, an American private equity firm whose previous investments include SurveyMonkey and Bitly. Adam Margolin and Parag Khandelwal of Spectrum Equity will be joining the DMI’s board of directors. Ted Weissberg, former CEO of ACAMS, will also join the board as executive chairman.
An allotment filing from August 31 this year shows that the Digital Marketing Institute Group Limited received equity of more than €8.6m from Digital Marketing Holdings Limited, the latter buying three shares for nearly €2.9m each.
Digital Marketing Holdings Limited, meanwhile, received €29m in investments in August and September this year, according to its allotment filings with the CRO.
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They include €24.9m from Spectrum Equity and €835,000 from Ted Weissberg. Ian Dodson, Anthony Quigley, Ken Fitzpatrick and a Malta-based holding company also invested €3.2m between them at the end of August 2017.
Adam Margolin said that there was an urgent need for digital marketing and digital sales education for professionals. “The Digital Marketing Institute is uniquely positioned to address this growing global skills gap through its innovative, industry-validated certification programmes,” he added.
DMI chief executive Ken Fitzpatrick (pictured) said the business required investment to scale to its potential. “Spectrum Equity has a great track record in edtech and digital marketing technology spaces, and with Ted Weissberg’s significant experience scaling a similar professional learning and certification business, I’m confident this is the right investment partnership to realise our global ambitions.” .
