And Rising launches to support scale-ups
Update
September 10th, 2018 was an exciting moment. This article was first published in Campaign UK , who at the time were struggling to understand our decision to take a successful advertising agency and re-launch it as a creative ventures firm. We've not looked back since.
18 Feet & Rising is relaunching its business as And Rising, a compressed version of its name that reflects what the agency describes as a "fresh strategic direction" targeting smaller, rapidly growing businesses and placing less emphasis on big established brands.
To respond to the changing needs of the market, And Rising will focus specifically on serving scale-ups –defined as development-stage businesses, often in Series B funding rounds and beyond, looking to grow in terms of market access, revenues and number of employees. In order to pursue its new strategic direction And Rising will also be parting company with its holding group, Creston Unlimited.
The UK’s thousands of scale-up businesses now generate around £900bn in turnover and contribute circa £3–3.5 million in jobs. A 1% increase in scale-ups would contribute a further £225bn and 200,000+ jobs to the UK economy alone. The team will collaborate with these fast-growth, innovative businesses, providing access to strategic and creative teams in order to help businesses scale quickly, acquire new customers and navigate growth.
Changing the way the world works
The new strategy stems from a broader ambition to support companies with new ideas changing the way the world works. In late 2016, And Rising became the first UK advertising company to be awarded B Corp status, a global movement of companies using business as a force for good, being run for the benefit of employees, communities and the planet alongside high returns for shareholders. As part of this And Rising is continuing its commitment to making over 50% of its revenue businesses have direct environmental or social positive impact by 2020.
Building on proven success
And Rising has already fostered a number of high-profile partnerships with successful scale-ups that have gone on to expand internationally, including ClearScore– a purpose-led fin-tech disruptor that has grown from a base of 1 million users in 2016 to 7 million users and growing; and Popchips– a category defining healthy snack company that has market leading growth of 54% in its category– in the UK and US. Throughout 2018 And Rising has continued to serve as the creative partner to a number of fast-growth scale-ups that have recently received investment, including Wheyhey- the rapidly expanding healthy treat company and makers of sugar-free, high-protein ice cream — Thriva- the fast-growth digital health business, and most recently Seedlip, the first distilled non-alcoholic drink to be backed by Distill Ventures, the Diageo-funded accelerator programme for entrepreneurs.
Fully flexible model
And Rising will now be offering an entirely flexible subscription model allowing brands to tap into its teams, resources and creativity as an extension of their own. The new agile model reflects the needs of these business and removes the need to sign up to rolling retainers.
Jonathan Trimble, CEO of And Rising said: “It’s become clear that the future world we’ll live in depends upon the success of scale-ups. It’s the most vital segment of business right now, inventing markets and challenging the existing ones. Their focus is not just changing how the world works, but changing how the world works for everyone. Not just idea creation, but idea growth. Our promise is to help them scale quicker than they ever could before, with access to creativity like no other.”
As part of the new direction, And Rising has moved to new offices on Bloomsbury Way, and will be offering co-working space for clients to utilise when required to provide on-the-ground support.
