Obsidian Digital 2021: By the numbers

With 2021 on the calendar for just a few days more, we would like to take the opportunity to reflect on the year.

The duality of the year has been striking: On one hand, Covid-19 has continued to take a toll on our clients present in the physical world, global supply chains are challenged and our clients struggle to hire enough personnel.

On the other side, digital clients have seen record highs month by month and Obsidian as a company has grown more in 2021 than we have in any other year. Our growth has been fueled not only by organic growth as in the first years, but also multiple successful acquisitions. However importantly, the previous mentioned all time growth high would still stand if no acquisitions had been made.

With the intent of starting a new tradition, here is Obsidian 2021: By the Numbers.

Employees: From 60 to +100

We started the year with around 60 employees. During 2021, we grew to more than 100 people (not including the recent acquisition of HeyMedia, adding another 15-20 employees).

The growth has happened both in our headquarters in Copenhagen and in our Banja Luka-office – the latter seeing growth in types of hires that we do not see in Copenhagen, including designers and developers etc. and we continue to be amazed by the talent we see out of Banja Luka.

Partners: From 6 to 9

We have also seen a growth in the partner group as the amount of partners have grown to 9 in the year thanks both to acquisitions (Mark Yuen from HeyMedia, Alexander Posselt Pedersen and Kasper Løndal from IBEX) and our internal partner programme resulting in the promotion of Casper Roth Lange.

We are very excited to see the launch of our partner programme allowing us to both maintain and attract top talent in digital marketing for the years to come.

Offices: Still 4, consolidating Aarhus

No new offices were opened in 2021. However, we saw offices in Copenhagen and Banja Luka strengthening with hires and our Aarhus office quadrupled in size from day to day with the acquisition of HeyMedia in late 2021.

Going into 2022, we are active in the following locations

• Copenhagen (Headquarters for Obsidian Digital)
• Aarhus (Headquarters for HeyMedia and Obsidian Media)
• Banja Luka
• Odense

Acquisitions: 3 (and more on the way)

Having teamed up with Danish private equity firm Capidea since mid 2021, organic growth is no longer the only route for growth. We are delighted to see the intentions behind the partnership being brought to life so early in the proces.

During 2021, we have seen two three acquisitions:

In may 2021, Alexander Posselt Pedersen and Kasper Løndal joined from IBEX Performance.

In August 2021, we made an acqui-hire with Alexander Leo Hansen joining as Head of Outreach with a portfolio of SEO-clients going with him.

In december 2021, Heymedia was acquired and Mark Yuen joined as partner. Heymedia is a sizable agency in Aarhus with almost 20 employees and marks the beginning of a strategic prioritization of Denmark’s second largest city for Obsidian.

In 2022, we plan on adding more talented people to the organisation – something we are eager to tell you more about in due time!

Conferences: 1 

With 2020 cancelling two conferences, we were thrilled to see the biggest social ads conference in the Nordics – Social Ads Conference – taking place november 2nd in Bella Sky, Copenhagen.

More than 250 participants joined us for a day full of inspiration for advertising on social media with talks from Facebook, Snap, TikTok and many others. We were particularly impressed with one of the speakers, prompting us to pursue him to join our team from the first of february.

We look forward to making an even greater Social Ads Conference next year – and we would not be surprised to see more conferences being added to the calendar.

Other notable events

In a fast-paced year, we also saw:

• Obsidians first Gazelle-award from Børsen for being one of the fastest growing companies in Denmark
• Total managed spend across Facebook and Google Ads rising roughly 50 % each
• Our first fully foregin clients with no offices or employees in Denmark

We would like to extend a big thank you for reading this and being a part of our 2021.

We look forward to jumping into the new year together.

Please feel free to stop by one of our offices for a coffee and a chat or reach out via digital media.