Combined Offering of Loyalty, Customer Intelligence, AI-Powered Personalization and CRM Will Accelerate Customer Growth for Clients
Bond, the leading customer intelligence-driven engagement company backed by Mountaingate Capital, has acquired Armadillo, an award-winning UK CRM agency.
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The acquisition further strengthens Bond’s ability to help global brands activate intelligence across nearly 200 million consumer profiles worldwide, delivering AI-powered personalization, attributable revenue growth, and powerful loyalty programs.
With over 850 specialists across North America and Europe, Bond and Armadillo now offer a fully connected engagement system — uniting advanced analytics, predictive modeling, CRM and loyalty strategy, enterprise marketing technology, creative activation, and closed-loop performance measurement to continuously optimize customer and commercial value. Armadillo will also enhance Bond’s international footprint, complementing its expanding North American presence.
“We are thrilled to welcome Armadillo to Bond,” said Morana Bakula, CEO of Bond. “This is a strategic leap forward in our intelligence-first mission. Businesses are under pressure to do more with less. By fusing Bond’s data science and loyalty technology with Armadillo’s CRM and personalization expertise, we’re enabling brands to personalize every moment, optimize every investment, and grow every relationship.”
Founded in 1993, Armadillo has built a reputation for unlocking MarTech to deliver high-performing customer journeys and personalized CRM programs for category-leading brands, including Disney, Nationwide Building Society, Greene King, Cunard, easyJet and Huel. The company has been recognized as the most awarded independent agency by the Data and Marketing Association over the last four consecutive years, cementing its position as a leader in intelligent, performance-driven CRM.
Bond is known for deepening relationships between brands and their customers and employees to drive lasting growth. The company is the leader in customer intelligence, with decades of experience in loyalty, behavioral science, research data, proprietary frameworks, technology, and analytics. Clients include Adobe, Bath & Body Works, Ford, Gap, McDonald’s, Sephora, and many others.
James Ray will expand his leadership, becoming SVP, Head of CRM, Global. Jo Penn extends her UK role to become Managing Director, UK & Europe. Both Ray and Penn will continue to work with existing clients, along with Armadillo’s current leadership and employees.
James Ray, CEO of Armadillo explained, “Marketing is at a turning point. CCOs, CMOs, and CTOs are juggling huge pressure and huge opportunity. Together, we cut through the complexity, turning brand, tech, and loyalty into one seamless engine for growth. What excites us is how well our cultures and values click. Both agencies are led by people who live and breathe the work, with clients, creativity, and the business front and center. This partnership will supercharge what we do, open new doors for clients, and bring together incredible talent. It’s a perfect fit: same vision, same passion, all totally connected to the work and our clients.”
Bond Founder and Chairman, Bob Macdonald said, “This acquisition substantiates our guiding principle that customer understanding drives long-lasting success. This is even more important today than when we were founded, and Bond continues to get more sophisticated at unlocking greater value for consumers and businesses. Our depth in loyalty, coupled with Armadillo’s creative and one-to-one marketing strengths, will provide clients with unparalleled engagement solutions that inspire customer action and deliver sustainable growth.”
The acquisition represents Bond’s continued expansion, further enhancing its ability to provide clients with a wide spectrum of fully integrated solutions.
About Armadillo
Armadillo is a leading UK relationship marketing agency. It fuses technology, data, strategy and creativity to create valuable, individual human, relationships between customers and brands.
Specialists in unlocking the untapped potential of brands’ MarTech systems and accelerating personalized marketing at scale, Armadillo creates award-winning CRM campaigns that deliver exceptional customer experiences and commercial growth – all implemented at pace.
Clients include Disney, Nationwide Building Society, Greene King, Cunard and easyJet and Huel.
CEO James Ray is Chair of The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising for England and Wales.
For more information, please visit www.armadillocrm.com.
About Bond
Bond is the customer-intelligence driven engagement company that creates growth by building lasting connections between brands, their employees, and their customers. Powered by Bond Intelligence, Bond’s work produces stronger brand loyalty, more advocacy, and lasting growth. Through Bond's unique integrated growth solutions, Bond is continuously recognized for its approach to engagement by tapping into the full potential of known customer connections through loyalty and engagement program optimization, design, customer intelligence, advanced analytics and A.I. integrated technologies. Bond operates offices globally throughout North America and Europe to support its clients. For more information, please visit www.BondBL.com.
About Mountaingate Capital
Mountaingate Capital is a Colorado-based private equity firm that specializes in partnering with founders and entrepreneurial companies to accelerate growth and build industry leaders. Mountaingate’s focus on organic growth, coupled with its customer-centric buy-and-build approach for add-on acquisitions, and shared equity ownership with management, creates more value for the end client, while forging stronger, more collaborative, and more successful investment partnerships with management teams. With over $1.4 billion of assets under management, Mountaingate targets investments in marketing services, business services, specialty manufacturing and distribution. For more information on Mountaingate, please visit www.mountaingate.com.
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Contacts
For more information, please contact:
Trent Sisson, Managing Director
Phone: 303.390.5001