Baltimore-based digital commerce company Flywheel Digital has been acquired by Omnicom for a net cash purchase price of approximately $835 million. Flywheel’s services enable top brands to sell more goods more efficiently across hundreds of digital marketplaces, such as Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba.

Since 2014, Flywheel Digital has been at the forefront of digital commerce, developing a suite of best-in-class solutions specifically designed to accelerate sales for the world’s leading brands, according to a release. With a workforce of more than 2,000 professionals, Flywheel provides services in retail commerce operations, media execution, and market intelligence to over 4,500 brands. These services are reinforced by their advanced technology platform, Flywheel Commerce Cloud, which delivers near real-time insights to improve decision-making and boost sales.

John Wren, Chairman and CEO of Omnicom said, “E-commerce sales worldwide are set to increase by 50%, reaching about $7 trillion dollars by 2025. The acquisition of Flywheel significantly broadens our reach and influence in the rapidly expanding digital commerce and retail media sectors, two of the fastest-growing parts of the industry. Together, we will seamlessly integrate our offerings across retail and brand media, digital and in-store commerce, and CRM, ultimately delivering superior results for our clients.”

For the past eight years, Flywheel has assembled leading-edge digital commerce solutions and integrated them into a proprietary platform with a single user interface, according to the release. Today, the Flywheel Commerce Cloud platform manages tens of billions in product sales and billions of advertising spend annually across digital marketplaces. Flywheel Commerce Cloud’s product and transaction data will be connected to Omni’s audience and behavioral data to provide unmatched insights and analytics.

Flywheel will operate as a Practice Area within Omnicom and will be led by Duncan Painter, in photo, who currently serves as CEO of Ascential.

Painter stated, “By connecting Flywheel Commerce Cloud’s product and transaction data with Omni’s audience and behavioral data, we are poised to offer an end-to-end set of services that outpaces the competition. We aim to empower our clients to automate, optimize, and measure their digital commerce and media spend within an increasingly complex marketplace.”

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024 and is subject to Ascential shareholder approval, regulatory approvals, and customary closing conditions.

Baltimore native James “Chip” DiPaula Jr. co-founded Flywheel Digital and under his leadership it became the world’s first advertising agency to earn access to Amazon advertising’s application program interface giving the company unprecedented data to optimize digital sales for consumer brands. Flywheel was acquired in 2018 by Ascential.

Image via Ascential