RELEVANT TRANSACTIONS
EVROS ADVISES RESIDENCE ON ITS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH GEMSPRING
Evros Group helped one of the world’s most innovative creative networks secure strategic investment from Gemspring Capital to accelerate its next vision of growth
FAST FACTS
Client: Residence
Industry: Creative Services / Marketing & Design
Headcount: 700+ global
Services Delivered: End-to-end M&A including: Narrative Development, Market Education, Material Creation, Buyer Curation, Transaction Execution
Date Closed: June 12, 2025
Key Outcome: Partnership strengthens Residence’s global leadership in creativity and sets the foundation for continued strategic acquisitions.
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Background | The Opportunity | The Mandate | The Challenge | The Evros Approach | The Results | Impact
When Residence, a global network of future-forward creative companies that’s designed to connect leading brands with rapidly evolving audiences and technologies, decided to take on a growth partner, it did so thoughtfully. The company sought a partner that understood the vision and wanted to help realize the potential. With Evros Group’s guidance, the company was reframed as more than just a revered creative powerhouse, but an impressively sophisticated organization, blending operational prowess with leading technological acumen. This ultimately led to securing a strategic partnership with Gemspring Capital, allowing Residence to preserve its vision, amplify its capabilities, and set a new benchmark for how founder-led creative platforms scale with intention.
“The Evros team immediately understood our business. They weren’t just advisors—they were advocates who appreciated our creative culture and helped us find a partner who shared that vision.”
*The above testimonial may not be representative of the experience of other clients and should not be construed as a guarantee of future performance or success.
Residence stands at the intersection of art, design, and technology. What began as BUCK, a studio known for turning animation into art, has now evolved into a collective of seven brands, eight global offices, and over 700 people bound by a shared culture of craft and innovation. Together these companies are responsible for some of the most compelling, iconic and provocative creatives for some of the world’s most admired brands.
Its purpose-built model was designed for the modern creative economy, often filling the gap left by legacy holding companies that couldn’t match Residence’s agility, collaboration, and speed of execution.
Behind the scenes, the team had built a level of infrastructure uncommon in creative businesses: a centralized finance and HR backbone, global IT systems, and a disciplined integration model that allowed each studio to maintain its identity, while benefiting from shared operations.
But that sophistication wasn’t always obvious to the market. On the outside, the creativity was revered. But the sophistication of the systems at scale, or their methodical expansion approach wasn’t as evident as their creative prowess.
That’s when Residence turned to Evros Group to position their business for the next chapter of growth.
The Opportunity: A Strong Platform Ready for Acceleration
“Residence’s leadership was modest about the remarkable enterprise they had built. Our role was to uncover the structure, story, and scale that differentiated the business - and articulate that narrative with clarity and conviction.”
Evros was engaged as exclusive financial advisor to guide Residence through its next inflection point: identifying a partner capable of accelerating growth, expanding acquisition capacity, and reinforcing the company’s leadership in technology-enabled creativity.
The assignment was clear: Residence needed a partner to amplify what was already working and to find an investor who could bring resources and reach, without compromising culture or vision.
Evros led the transaction end-to-end: from strategic narrative to final close
Reframe how Residence was perceived (from a collective of studios to a scalable, data- and technology-driven platform)
Correct buyer misconceptions and surface what the team had been too humble to promote: the caliber of their creative output, the technology enabling it, and the enterprise-level systems supporting it.
Curate a buyer universe aligned to its culture, prioritizing partnership over simply a transaction for the sake of a transaction
Secure a growth partner aligned with the brand’s long-term vision and accelerated scale, without compromising the brand’s ethos
The Mandate: Scale, Alignment, Acceleration
By the time Residence began exploring a partnership, the creative M&A landscape had grown noisy. Holding companies, roll-ups, and private-equity-backed networks were all vying for attention, many promising scale, few delivering synergy.
To some investors, Residence looked like just another collection of studios. What they couldn’t see was the deliberate architecture beneath: unified systems, a shared culture, and an infrastructure built to scale creativity with precision. Residence was in fact, a meticulously engineered ecosystem with global reach, sophisticated use of technology across their processes, and measurable success.
Compounding the challenge was perception of looming industry threats. In an age of AI disruption, buyers often viewed animation and design businesses as vulnerable. Evros needed to reframe that narrative, positioning Residence not as vulnerable to AI but as one of its early beneficiaries — a studio whose technical depth, strategic thinking, and advanced workflows put it at the forefront of applying AI, not on the sidelines of it.
Evros knew that proving that sophistication meant going beyond pitch decks. The team developed materials and sessions that let investors learn about Residence’s depth firsthand: from creative showcases to live demonstrations with the company’s tech teams. They didn’t just hear about what Residence was capable of, they experienced it.
The Challenge: Standing Out in a Saturated Market
“They were doing mind-blowing work, from helping architect the Sphere in Las Vegas, designing entire digital ecosystems for global brands and household names, and even advising OpenAI, but because they didn’t self-promote, few realized how integral to the landscape they truly were.”
The Evros Approach: From Hidden Strength to Market Signal
Evros approached the engagement with an operator’s mindset, combining advisory rigor with first-hand experience in scaling companies. The team worked as both strategists and storytellers to:
Reframe the Story: Diagnostic Analysis and Narrative Development
Evros began with a deep diagnostic across operations, financials, and integration systems. They discovered the company was already functioning like a public-ready platform: standardized systems, cross-functional integration, and data-driven decision making.
This helped reframe the narrative: Residence wasn’t a roll-up; it was a scalable platform and ecosystem purpose-built for creative innovation.
Educate the Market
Evros crafted a tailored investor narrative that showcased Residence’s blend of creative mastery and technological depth. This worked in transforming perceptions about Residence as being solely an “agency” to more of an “engine.” This included positioning the company’s community platforms (It’s Nice That, If You Could, Creative Lives in Progress) as strategic assets driving talent acquisition, client visibility, and pipeline.
Curate the Right Buyers
Rather than an open process, Evros targeted investors who understood creative economies and modern platform models. The team emphasized alignment and appreciation: focusing on those who valued creative capital as much as financial return.
“This wasn’t about selling the company,” said Bill. “It was about matchmaking, finding a partner who saw both the scale and the soul of the business.”
Execute with Precision
Multiple offers followed. Among them, Gemspring Capital stood out immediately. Their investment model emphasized collaboration, flexibility, and acceleration. From the first meeting, they “got it.” The deal structure preserved Residence’s creative independence, while providing capital to fuel the company’s growth plans, including future acquisitions and expansion.
The investment from Gemspring marked a major milestone for Residence, and serves as a model for how creative companies can attract institutional capital without compromising their vision. Residence will continue to combine world-class creativity with enterprise-grade systems to scale culture-driven creative excellence globally, now with a new partner in their corner.
Transaction Highlights:
Strategic investment secured from Gemspring Capital
Creative integrity was aligned with the Residence leadership team
New capital unlocked for expansion and acquisitions
Market positioning clarified: a narrative now leveraged internally across recruiting, PR, and business development
For Evros, the deal represented another proof point of its philosophy: when you combine operational understanding with precise storytelling, value follows.
The Results: A Partnership Built for Scale
“This transaction is a great example of how our team is able to work with cutting edge and industry shaping entities and maximize their market value opportunity through a deeply sector native strategic understanding.”
Impact: Redefining Creative-Industry Investment
The Residence–Gemspring partnership has since become a reference point for creative-industry investors, a transaction that proved scale and soul can coexist. In a space often driven by volume and consolidation, it demonstrated that thoughtful scale, grounded in culture and clarity, can attract premium capital.
Evros’ role demonstrated that financial advisory in the creative economy is no longer about numbers alone, it’s about translating vision into value.
Read the transaction press release here.
Partner with Purpose
At Evros Group, we help founder-led companies turn what they’ve built into measurable market value, without losing what makes them unique. From creative platforms to technology innovators, our team brings the operational insight and strategic storytelling needed to attract the right partners and accelerate growth.
If you’re ready to amplify your next chapter, let’s start the conversation: hello@evrosgroup.com