Wayne-based LiquidHub acquired by French consulting firm in $500M deal

Wayne-based LiquidHub, a digital customer engagement firm that employs about 800 across the Philly region, has been sold to Capgemini, a Paris-based professional services company.

The sticker price on the deal was approximately $500 million, or two times LiquidHub’s revenue in 2017. The company offers corporations a slate of services in the digital space: data analytics, market research, enterprise architecture and other services.

“The full spectrum of Capgemini’s digital transformation solutions and services coupled with its global reach will allow us to augment and expand our offerings for our current and future clients around the world: a very exciting prospect for the entire LiquidHub team,” said LiquidHub cofounder and CEO Jonathan Brassington, the former PACT chairman who started the company in the year 2000 alongside Rob Kelley and Lee Yohannan.

Welcome to the @Capgemini family @LiquidHub #Digital https://t.co/ot8NSdsNn8

— Capgemini (@Capgemini) February 5, 2018

In a statement published Monday, Paul Hermelin, chairman and CEO of the Capgemini Group, praised the company’s employee retention rates and the team’s “customer centric mindset.”

“LiquidHub’s passion to help clients uncover new ways to engage with their customers, supported by robust digital expertise and a strong track record in complex technology execution, was a natural fit with the end to end digital services that Capgemini provides enterprises around the world,” said Hermelin.

The company employs some 800 staffers around the Philly area including a Delaware outpost, its global HQ off Route 202 in Wayne and a startup-y looking office that takes up the bulk of the third floor at the Curtis Center.

“This location helps us make sure that we can appeal to a broad group of professionals,” said partner Suzanne Lentz in August, when the Philadelphia office was inaugurated.

LiquidHub had a major growth spurt at the end of 2016, when it acquired Annik, a Seattle-based data analytics firm that grew the company’s workforce by almost 50 percent.