• by Larissa Faw , August 20, 2015

Europe and America are coming together as Houston-based content shop MMI Agency and UK-based The Sandpit are forming a strategic partnership to leverage each other's services.

The Sandpit offers tech startups full support from the proof of concept stage to established growth phase through hands-on go-to-market activation, strategic planning, sales and marketing.

Now, MMI Agency’s clients will be able to gain first-look opportunities and help these startups prove their business model. 

At the other side, MMI Agency will share client and agency feedback to The Sandpit product teams about how to further improve its solutions so that they become more viable and scalable, in addition to U.S. market adaptation.

“The Sandpit nurtures unique and exciting tech startups that are creating products that will help our clients gain a competitive advantage and fuel meaningful, data-driven conversations across their digital platforms,” said Benjamin Spiegel, CEO of MMI Agency. “Leveraging best-in-class technologies will add a powerful new dimension to the execution of high-impact event, PR, social, and experiential marketing campaigns."

This partnership was part of an intentional growth opportunity. MMI Agency was searching globally for a business builder and found The Sandpit as an attractive option. Then, CEOs Benjamin Spiegel and Simon Campbell met in Houston to discuss the partnership and the agreement was struck there.

"The Sandpit is really excited to work with MMI to help test, adapt and launch The Sandpit products for the market across the pond,” said Campbell. “We want to try some cool new things, and MMI Agency is in a great stage of its own development to evolve with us in an agile and dynamic way."

The partnership is already proving to be fruitful. 

Initial products that the agency will offer to clients include iadbox, a mobile marketing platform with a user-controlled inbox that provides all the tools to interact and generate revenue from the audience; Batn, the world’s first Twitter takeover product that enables brands to authorize anyone to post on their behalf in a simple and safe way; and DeepCrawl, a Web site crawler, designed to improve SEO performance. As new products are developed, MMI Agency’s clients will have first access to these new technologies in the U.S.

The 80-staff MMI Agency plans to launch its own U.S.-based digital technology lab in collaboration with Sandpit Lab to provide Houston and national tech startups the opportunity to pitch to the 12-staff Sandpit, as well as enter MMI Agency’s product development path.