Picnic raises £2m Series A investment and prepares for growth

US expansion and new products are in the pipeline for flying Social Display start-up 

Picnic, the Social Display Marketplace, has closed its Series A funding round with the announcement of a £2m investment from Guinness Asset Management, laying the tracks for the high-achieving young company’s US expansion.

Picnic brings the high-quality ad experiences of social media to the open web by delivering intuitively engaging social display ad formats, such as ‘Stories’ and ‘Carousel’, via Google’s user-first AMP inventory.

In the four years since its launch, the London-based start-up has established itself as one of the UK’s leading homegrown AdTech companies, delivering more than 400 campaigns for advertisers across multiple verticals.

Picnic’s user-friendly product delivers average total engagement rates of more than 3x Instagram benchmarks, achieving as much as 18x ROI for some brands, as well as increases in brand perception of up to 129% across various brand studies.

Profitable, and bootstrapped until now, Picnic will use the new funding to drive its international expansion, expand its team and accelerate product development. As part of the investment, Guinness Fund Manager Ashley Abrahams joins Picnic’s board of directors.

“These are very exciting times for our business,” says Picnic CEO and founder Matthew Goldhill. “We have prided ourselves on growing this far without institutional investment, but this is precisely the right moment to move into a different gear and we know we have found the right partners with whom to do it.

“Many of our publisher clients operate internationally, and we know beyond doubt that there is demand for our formats in the US and elsewhere. Our next aim is to fulfil that, while also developing our vision with some highly interesting new projects.”

Alex Reed, Partner at Mountside Ventures, which supported the investment, points to Picnic’s game-changing products, their proven demand and the strengths of Picnic’s founder – who was recently featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list – as the three key pillars of Picnic’s appeal.

“We’re delighted for Matt and the team for closing their funding round so efficiently. ‘Founder-first’ conviction is spoken about a lot in venture, and Matt is certainly a founder you’d want to work with. He brings deep AdTech expertise combined with passionate leadership, and we’re looking forward to the next stage of Picnic’s growth and expansion, with Guinness alongside.” 

Ashley Abrahams, Fund Manager at Guinness Asset Management, says:

“Guinness is thrilled to be supporting Picnic during this exciting time of growth and product development. Picnic is leading the way in creating Social Digital Display as a new way for companies to engage with their audiences , aided by innovative formatting and display. Picnic’s unique proposition has already demonstrated brilliant results for a wide range of customers and we are excited to help Matt and the team on the next stage of their growth journey.”

Within its first year of launch, Picnic delivered more than 150 campaigns for brands across multiple verticals, integrating with over 50% of the UK’s premium publisher market in the process. They also introduced a new product: the Studio tool, enabling media owners to design and create custom ads in minutes. 

Barely two years old at the beginning of the pandemic, Picnic has survived and ultimately thrived during difficult times, while evolving a working culture that is not only flexible but encourages positive mental wellbeing. (FYI – Matthew Goldhill shares his top tips here).

Picnic beat Gumgum, Magnite and Xandr – all $1bn+ companies – to the best new supply side product award at The Wires Global in December last year. The team has also won Best Digital Product Innovation at the Digiday Media Awards. Picnic now boasts clients including Microsoft, Next and Sainsbury’s.