Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO, Digital Marketing Institute
The digital marketing and sales education institute has secured a €26 million investment led by Spectrum Equity, a notable growth equity firm.
The new investment will be pumped into professional learning and certification programs. The institute has been through a growth period recently and has 18,000 professionals in 115 countries.
Since 2014, the Digital Marketing Institute (DMI) has grown 73% annually due to demand of its online learning programs, which have facilitated the investment injection.
It is the global certification body that has trained the most sales and marketing executives to date out of all the digital training standards out there. Representatives from the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn oversee the test standards and make sure everything is precise and up-to-date. 80% of the DMI graduates work in digital roles with the remaining in director levels or above.
The DMI board of directors will see Adam Margolin and Parag Khandelwal of Spectrum Equity join them. CEO of the DMI Ken Fitzpatrick will have former CEO of Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) Ted Weissberg join the board, also, as Executive Chairman.
Mr Margolin said: “There is an urgent need for digital marketing and digital sales education for professionals. The Digital Marketing Institute is uniquely positioned to address this growing global skills gap through its innovative, industry-validated certification programs. We are excited to partner with Ken Fitzpatrick, Ted Weissberg and the rest of the Digital Marketing Institute team as we look to scale the business globally and build the leading training and certification provider for sales and marketing professionals across all industries.”
Mr Fitzpatrick, speaking of the investment, said: “While we are very proud of the international growth achieved by the Digital Marketing Institute to date through self-funding, we recognise the potential scale that can be realised with investment. Spectrum Equity has a great track record in EdTech and digital marketing technology spaces, and with Ted Weissberg’s significant experience scaling a similar professional learning and certification business, I’m confident this is the right investment partnership to realise our global ambitions.”