Lumine Group | TMD Acquisition Case Study

Background

TransMedia Dynamics (TMD) is a provider of content supply chain software used by some of the world’s most visionary and innovative media & entertainment, government, and archive organizations. TMD’s platform provides a cloud-native, service-orientated architecture delivering media-aware, software-defined workflows supporting a wide range of media services.

Tony Taylor, TMD’s Founder and Executive Chairman, has been building the organization for over 20 years. As Executive Chairman, he provides the overall strategic direction for the company and maintains relationships with key customers to ensure they are served by the best technology and implementation services. As Founder of TMD, Tony has always demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit. He possesses a strong focus in the media space, specializing in media organization management.

Path to Acquisition

The idea to sell the business first came in 2014, when Tony and the TMD team put out a prospectus information memo to test the appetite for acquisition. They decided to hold on the process, but after meeting Lumine President David Nyland at Broadcast Nation, Tony kept in touch with David and the Lumine team over the following years. When Tony felt ready to sell, he pursued a conversation with Lumine.

Protecting the Brand, Business, Customers & Products

In March 2021, TMD joined Lumine Group as the 18^th company within the portfolio. When initiating this process, TMD was focused on protecting the products they’d spent over 20 years developing as well as retaining their independence.

“When meeting with other acquirers, we were seeing that often when acquired with a larger business, TMD dies,” said Tony Taylor, TMD Founder & Executive Chairman. “After building the product from scratch for decades, the TMD team deserved more than that. I did not want to see it subside into another tech company. We liked the idea of having autonomy and operating within a decentralized model.”

“Lumine would allow us to run the business, allow us to keep our brand, and to keep and grow our market share,” added Tony. “It’s not just about valuation when you are selling your business. We really appreciated Lumine’s culture, and that they understood ours.”

3 Reasons TMD Chose Lumine

Buy & Hold Forever

Knowing that Lumine is a buy-and-hold forever acquirer, TMD felt confident their business would be in safe and reliable hands, forever.

Scalability

TMD was excited by the opportunity to learn from Lumine’s best practices, knowledge, and resources. They were also excited to gain access to capital and an ecosystem of customers to help scale the business and access new geographies.

Autonomy

Working with Lumine would allow TMD to operate autonomously on a day-to-day basis and maintain the TMD brand and culture.

“If you are looking to grow the business and get support from a larger organization who has the capabilities and resources to help you, Lumine is the best place to go,” – Tony Taylor, TMD, Executive Chairman & Founder

What's Next for TMD?

TMD’s strength is in content supply chain management, a rapidly evolving and increasingly demanding landscape. “Everyone needs more content and more support to deliver on more devices,” said Tony. As the demand for different types of content continues to grow, the media and communications landscape is required to evolve.

These new demands highlight an opportunity for TMD to support the Lumine ecosystem of customers. Specifically, TMD sees opportunities to support existing Lumine customers in the mobile communications space with network operations and delivery solutions. “Velocix [a sister Lumine company] is in the content delivery network space, so where Velocix starts is where we end – there are many opportunities to explore.”

Tony has scaled the TMD business from the ground up, opening offices in Australia, Malaysia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In today’s media landscape, there is consistent fast-paced change as people’s needs and opportunities continue to develop. “It is a passion of mine to provide solutions that impact and effect everyone across the supply chain,” said Tony. TMD will continue to scale the business and is confident Lumine is the best partner to help the organization continue to succeed, while maintaining the same strong, consistent relationship with their customers and employees.

TMD celebrates 20+ year history and plans for scale with Lumine Group