Late last month, we were thrilled to announce a $100 million investment in Ceros from Sumeru Equity Partners, a technology investment firm based in the Bay Area. This is a really noteworthy deal—not only for Ceros (the company behind Ceros Inspire, in case you hadn’t figured that out), but also for digital content creation as a whole.
“SEP’s strengths lie in data, analytics, and operational support in scaling SaaS businesses and our strengths lie in design, creativity, and a great product,” Ceros CEO Simon Berg said of the partnership. “When we join the two, we have a marriage of limitless potential.”
This investment in Ceros is made more significant given the current economic climate. This is not a time when a lot of companies are announcing positive news—Q2 2020 was disruptive for all, and cataclysmic for many others. Almost every company scrambled to find ways to recreate their businesses as digital-only. With in-person experiences—like events, face-to-face meetings, even showroom and retail interactions—all temporarily shelved, there is an increased emphasis and a new reliance on creating powerful digital experiences. For Ceros, Q2 highlighted the work we’ve been doing in the interactive content space for the past eight years. Since March, Ceros customers (over 500 of them around the world) have doubled their rate of creation of experiences on the Ceros platform.
Ceros sees itself primarily as a creative company, and our leadership has been wary about accepting investment from a typical private equity firm. But Berg doesn’t see SEP as a typical private equity firm. We will be maintaining our unique, creative identity. No one expects the company to turn into Microsoft anytime soon.
“We’ve made it very, very clear with each other, that that’s not going to happen,” Berg said. “What we’re actually getting is a bunch of cool, easy-going, progressive, financially-minded folks that understand the space. And we compliment each other.”
Ceros intends to use the funds to further invest in its product and continue to establish itself as a leader in the interactive content space. The company also plans to keep its commitment to its employees—not a single one of whom has been laid off or had salary reduced during the pandemic. And that’s a vision that SEP shares going forward.
