Growth Capital Partners completes minority investment in Jones Knowles Ritchie

Growth Capital Partners (GCP) is delighted to announce that it has completed an investment in Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR), an award-winning design-led creative company. This is GCP’s eighth investment from its Fund IV.

GCP’s investment will allow JKR’s founders to leave the business and give the existing leadership team freedom to continue growing the business.

JKR was founded in 1990 and today is over 300 strong with offices in London, New York, Singapore and Shanghai. Its design and strategy teams work hand in hand across its offices and in close partnership with its clients to deliver clear and relevant market knowledge as well as a full raft of services from trends to innovation, and from Visual Brand Identity to brand architecture review.

JKR is consistently recognised at leading industry awards and was recently crowned Design Agency of the Year at D&AD 2019, for an unprecedented second year running.

GCP has taken a minority stake in JKR and only one seat on the Board; the majority of the equity and control of the Board remains with CEO, Guy Lambert, and his immediate leadership team.

Guy  Lambert, CEO commented:

“This is an important and exciting moment in the journey of Jones Knowles Ritchie. It was important to us that we found a partner that believes in our vision to become the pre-eminent global design-led creative company of the future and above all, to still be Proudly Independent so that we can do right by our incredible clients and their brands.”

Kirsty McDonald, Partner at GCP, who has joined the Board of JKR, commented:

“From our very first interactions with JKR and its team, we’ve been convinced that this is an exceptional business delivering the very highest quality of creative work and strategic thinking to its clients around the world. We believe our distinctive partnership style and flexible funding approach will give the business the best possible platform for growth whilst allowing the team to maintain its special culture and its focus on creative quality, to keep redefining its category and ultimately to continue to consistently astonish its clients.”