• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, January 13, 2022

Stagwell has taken a minority stake in an early-stage martech venture capital firm called Hannah Grey which is backing digital media, digital transformation, data & software products and other startups in the sector.

The exact amount of Stagwell’s investment wasn’t disclosed though its understood Stagwell will become a limited partner in the investment firm.

Hannah Grey was founded by a former Stagwell executive, Jessica Peltz-Zatulove and Kate Beardsley.

Peltz-Zatulove was senior managing partner, strategy and investments at MDC Ventures, the corporate investment arm of MDC Partners which merged with Stagwell last year. While there she led investments in breakout startups such as A.I. intelligence company Netomi, Amazon insights platform Gradient.io and content platform Catch & Release among others.

She left in October 2020 to found Hannah Grey with Beardsley, who was previously managing partner at Upslope Ventures. Earlier in her career she served at The Huffington Post (as Chief of Staff to chairman Kenneth Lerer) and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia where she oversaw a special projects unit and reported directly to Stewart.

“At Hannah Grey, our investment strategy puts an emphasis on monitoring the behavior changes and cultural shifts that are accelerating new ways consumers live, work and play,” said Peltz-Zatulove. “This creates a strong alignment with Stagwell’s mission to transform connected experiences for today’s consumers.”

In addition to external investments, Stagwell recently unveiled the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, a suite of products supporting business transformation for client in-house teams, including a location-based augmented-reality platform called ARound which it debuted at CES earlier this month.