Atlanta-based Chemistry is the latest independent agency to receive private equity investment. Chemistry has received a slight majority stake from Breakwater Management, the companies told ADWEEK exclusively. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

The full-service agency will retain its leadership team and use the funds to scale its services by investing in talent and technology, and through strategic M&A. Chemistry employs 170 people with offices in Atlanta, New York, Pittsburgh, and Miami. Its clients include Netflix, the NBA, and Comcast. 

The 18-year-old agency began thinking about its future when it saw the trend of private equity investments in agencies start to pick up in the last few years. 

“The competitive landscape for us is shifting,” said Ned Show, CEO of Chemistry. “Other independents at scale are taking on financial partners. They’re fueling their growth. We felt like it was a moment in time when we needed to think about that in a way that, maybe, we wouldn’t have five years ago.”

Chemistry organically built a full-service offering across creative, digital, production, and media over the past two decades. The agency was looking for the backing and financial acumen to accelerate its growth as its peers in the industry scaled up. 

“We weren’t really interested in standing on the shoulders of giants and doing the holding company thing. That didn’t really appeal to us,” said Tim Smith, president at Chemistry. “But we kind of felt like we had a box of eight crayons, and everybody else was playing with the 64 box with the sharpener.” 

When the agency began speaking to PE backers, Los Angeles-based Breakwater Management stood out for its focus on media, entertainment, and marketing services. Smith said that Breakwater Management also understood the importance of preserving agency culture. 

With other potential PE partners, “all they want to know is, what widget is it that you are going to sell? They don’t understand culture,” Smith said. “With Breakwater, they know the culture is a driving force in this thing.”

In addition to a diverse set of clients and services, Chemistry was an appealing investment because of its strong growth, client retention numbers, and pitch win rates, said Erick Beckman, chairman and managing partner at Breakwater Management.

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