London, 7th October 2022: Grafton Capital, the European growth stage technology investor, has acquired brand monitoring and creative testing platform ProQuo AI. This is a first transaction for its recently launched Special Situations strategy, targeting investments into proven businesses which have struggled to raise traditional funding in the current market environment.

Grafton Capital’s founder, Ed Barroll Brown, led the transaction and commented

“ProQuo AI’s technology effectively reads the minds of around 1 million consumers each month, revealing actionable data and insights which are a “must-have” for brand managers. We believe ProQuo AI has a market leading product which is well placed to benefit from the drive towards marketing efficiency for consumer brands over the coming months and years.”

ProQuo AI International uses AI to turn consumers’ instinctive feelings about brands – the same instincts that drive 95% of purchasing decisions – into actionable data across 16 drivers of brand value. The business, which has a presence in London, New York and Johannesburg has been growing at an average of 38% per quarter since Jan 2021. ProQuo has over 130 customers including Keurig, Dr Pepper, Expedia, Amazon Prime and Unilever. 

ProQuo’s recently promoted CEO, Jim Brennan, has significant experience in brand management having previously spent 10 years at Unilever working on brands across multiple categories and geographies, including Food & Beverage, Online Gaming and Personal Care in MENA, North America and Latin America.  Discussing the acquisition, Brennan said

“Grafton Capital’s acquisition of ProQuo puts us in a stronger position than we’ve ever been in before. Grafton’s expertise in scaling growth stage, tech-enabled businesses like ours will focus our sales & marketing and streamline our operations so that we can deliver even greater value to our customers.” 

Chief Product Officer Pete Harvey, a cofounder of ProQuo, who has led the development of the product and the R&D team from the ground up, stated

“Grafton’s acquisition enables us to accelerate our product development to bring more delight to more customers in less time. The most valuable thing a VC can bring, beyond just their money, is to increase the odds of the target business succeeding. With Grafton on board, I am more confident than ever that ProQuo will continue to grow and succeed.” 

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Grafton Capital 

Grafton Capital is a private equity firm focused on investment in European, growth stage, tech-enabled companies. Since 2014, Grafton has invested over £130m and partnered with founders who have global ambitions, as well as companies that are leading players in valuable niches. Grafton Capital typically invests between £5 – £20 million, taking a minority stake in a business, with flexibility to take controlling positions where appropriate. Grafton Capital’s investment focus is on providers of business software, data and analytics, online platforms and marketplaces.