Flush With Cash, Opus Origin Is Looking to Buy Media, Events & Data Businesses
Opus Origin recently announced the acquisition of Data Center Nation, a data center events company, one of what it hopes will be several purchases as it gears up to be a bigger player in the events business.
The parent company, formed about two years ago, aims to build connected events-media-data businesses that go beyond traditional once-a-year get-togethers and stand-alone news and information offerings. “This new breed of B2B media operators are focused on supporting the communities they serve with relevant, timely, personalized insights, connections and information – generating exceptional customer outcomes and measurable value,” Opus Origin said on its website.
Sam Jennings, a co-founder of the new company, told AMO:
The thing that we really want to create is a business that has multiple service lines, multiple touch points into a single community, and is not just an event business or a media business or a info services or any of those things. It’s a first-party data platform that helps a community to do business.
Opus Origin is backed by a single source of capital—for now—Stephen Brooks, who sold Mack Brooks to RX Global, a division of RELX, in 2019. The company has a fund in excess of £100 million ($126 million) with a remit to invest in businesses generating between £1m to £5m EBITDA. Jennings and co-founder Sam Kimble worked in events for years. They kept meeting smaller entrepreneurs who had launched or were trying to transform media, data and events and take business away from incumbents who were slow to evolve. They wanted to work with those forward-looking visionaries.
Jennings confirmed that Opus Origin has “plenty of money” and is “ready to go immediately, and we’re active all the time assessing targets.”
In fact, Opus Origin says as much on its website: “Contact us if you have a strong culture [centered] around customer satisfaction and ROI, a dynamic, ambitious management team and you are seeking a new strategic partner and investor to support existing growth plans or to unlock new opportunities. Minimum £1m EBITDA”
Opus Origin may be ready to buy, but the pickings haven’t necessarily been up to par. They’ve come close to a couple of purchases recently that haven’t panned out because either the opportunity to expand the existing business into different service lines isn’t clear or there’s already a competitor in the space preventing expansion.
“What we’re looking for is the ability for them to become more than just the thing they are when we acquire them,” Jennings said.
If no other attractive acquisitions appear, the company will invest in its existing assets: “We already have a beautiful business,” Jennings said. “We would be very happy spending the next few years really maximizing that business.”
Media, Events, Data
That other business currently comprises InfraXmedia, Opus Origin’s B2B media and events platform for the digital infrastructure industry and the parent company of DatacenterDynamics, and Yotta events. InfraXmedia was the actual buyer of Data Center Nation, a fairly new outfit at just three years old. Data Center Dynamics is a global media business and provider of marketing solutions, information services and events for people who plan, build and operate digital infrastructure, while Yotta focuses on innovative technologies and networking opportunities with an upcoming event in Las Vegas.
Opus Origin also owns WHD Event GmbH, headquartered in Cologne, which organizes events serving cloud service providers and managed service providers. Among the events are Cloudfest, a cloud and hosting industry event that attracts over 10,000 people to Europa Park in Rust, Germany, annually; MSP Global, an event for managed service providers that takes place near Barcelona; and NamesCon, a domain name gathering.
Data Center Dynamics was Opus Origin’s first acquisition, just over two years ago. It embodied everything the company was looking for, using their content and events effectively to drive marketing performance and delivering “loads of high value outcomes for their media customers,” Jennings said. “Their performance as a result is really off the chart.”
While Opus Origin’s co-founders specialized in events, they also needed data expertise, so they hired Dan Davey as chief executive officer. Davey previously founded his own B2B media, insights and technology agency, Progressive Content, before selling it to GlobalData in 2020, where he stayed on as managing director of M&A.
“There’s a number of event and media businesses that have an untapped opportunity with the data they’ve collected over many years, and that insight is often able to add a unique layer of color and understanding to market trends and forecasts where the market is moving to, which hasn’t always been capitalized on by these businesses,” Davey told AMO.
When you bring data, events and media together, “it’s a very, very valuable and strong proposition that you’re taking to the marketplace as it builds a resilient and reliable business profile that clearly delivers sustainable growth,” Davey said. The combination of information allows for more accuracy and the ability to reach audiences throughout the year as opposed to once a year at an event, and have more awareness of the market’s direction and how to serve your target audience.
