PriestleySoundy advised private equity house capital D in connection with the acquisition of a majority stake in Phrasee. The financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
capital D is the first majority institutional investor in Phrasee. Investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, together with a group formed by Keyhaven Capital Partners and family offices co-invested alongside capital D. The capital D consortium has acquired a 64% stake in Phrasee with the founders (Parry Malm, Vic Peppiatt and Neil Yager) and management holding the remainder.
Founded in 2015, London-based Phrasee revolutionises customer experiences by optimising the language brands use across the full customer journey. Its AI-powered SaaS platform brings together natural language generation, machine learning and dynamic optimisation, making Phrasee the only provider of its kind to generate, optimise, automate, and analyse language in real time. Phrasee is disrupting the traditional role of the human copywriter/marketer. Its clients are typically large, well-known enterprises across multiple sectors in the USA and Europe.
The capital D-led consortium will support Phrasee on the next phase of its impressive growth journey, including further expansion in the USA.
capital D is a next-generation private equity fund manager focused on disruptive mid-market businesses across Europe. capital D invests at the intersection of macro, technological and behavioural trends, in businesses which will be the winners of the disruption economy.
PriestleySoundy has partnered with investment professionals at capital D (and at previous private equity houses) for over 20 years. This is the second time that PriestleySoundy has helped capital D successfully to complete an investment: the first time being capital D’s investment in Qmee (in March 2021).
capital D also received legal advice from Squire Patton Boggs (UK), Carey Olsen (Guernsey) and (in relation to fund matters) Goodwin Procter. Phrasee’s Founders and other selling shareholders received legal advice from Orrick.
16 March 2022
