Webedia announces today that it has acquired a majority stake in UK-based Peach Digital Limited, leading cinema web development and digital marketing specialists. Peach’s extensive experience delivering high-end, reliable web solutions for exhibitors has allowed the company to gain significant market share in both the UK and the US over the past decade.
The acquisition of Peach will reinforce Webedia’s existing assets in Europe and the US. It will add the proven Peach Cinema Web Platform, featuring the middleware application that is central to Peach’s online cinema offering. Peach’s 15 years of expertise and sector knowledge will help the group’s growing list of exhibitor partners deliver enhanced returns from their online channels.
The Peach brand and service offering will be maintained and the organization will continue to be run by the existing management team. Being part of the larger organisation with extensive international reach, products and resources will allow Peach to access new markets and offer a wider range of products and services.
Mike Rose, Peach CEO, said: “This investment represents a key milestone in the growth of Peach, allowing us to expand our physical operations into the US and beyond. It will allow us to provide a much more locally focussed service to our clients and a wider range of products. We are looking forward to working with the Webedia team to further build our product offering and our position in the exhibition and the wider cinema sector”
Julien Marcel, CEO of Webedia US, added: “Following the acquisition of Cote Cine Group, BoxOffice Media and West World Media in 2015, our investment in Peach marks a new step in the expansion of Webedia services to the exhibition sector. The range and depth of their digital marketing experience is well-known within the industry and the Peach Cinemas platform will allow us to increase our penetration of existing markets and open new international territories.”
About Webedia
Since 2007, Webedia has been targeting a passionate audience by building a global network of unique talents, media brands, events and services within the entertainment and recreation industries. With more than 50 sites worldwide under their wing (AlloCiné, Purepeople, Puretrend, Jeuxvideo.com, Gamestar, 3DJuegos, 750g, Tudo Gostoso, EasyVoyage…), and some of the most influential trendsetters on social media (Cyrpien, Squeezie, Norman, Natoo, Sananas, El Rubius, Kéfera…), the group attracts more than 100 million unique visitors each month on all devices. Webedia guides its clients through the process of defining and achieving their digital marketing strategies, offering solutions to their advertising, content marketing and e-commerce needs. Webedia joined the French investment company Fimalac in May 2013, under the leadership of Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière.
About Peach Digital
Peach was formed as a web and digital marketing agency in 2000 and is independently owned by the management team. In 2011, the team led by Michael Rose (CEO), took the decision to focus on developing online web and marketing solutions for cinema exhibition. As part of this focus, the Peach Cinemas web platform, comprising middleware and front-end website was developed to help improve reliability and quality of experience for the movie-goer. This has been deployed on over 20 exhibitor websites in Europe and North America. Peach also offers email, search and social media marketing services to its clients. www.peachdigital.com