Mindgruve Secures Financing for Levelwing Merger
Livingstone’s Debt Advisory team is pleased to announce that Mindgruve has received acquisition financing from KeyBank. The transaction closed in April 2025; terms were not disclosed.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in San Diego, CA, Mindgruve is a modern media, commerce, and data technology company. The agency rapidly expanded through strategic mergers with Macarta, Icon Commerce, and most recently, Levelwing, a nationally recognized performance marketing and data technology company. With over 400 employees across eight offices in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, Mindgruve delivers full-funnel, modern media, commerce, and predictive marketing solutions to global brands.
The addition of Levelwing strengthens Mindgruve’s performance marketing capabilities and predictive analytics offerings, while expanding its U.S. footprint with offices in Charleston and Nashville. Together, the combined team brings a deep bench of strategy, creative, media, and data science expertise, serving a diverse client base across industries including automotive, financial services, consumer goods, and healthcare.
Mindgruve engaged Livingstone to run a competitive financing process to fund the Levelwing acquisition, refinance existing debt, and cover transaction costs. Livingstone targeted a broad universe of unitranche lenders, mezzanine lenders, and commercial banks, ultimately securing a sole bank deal with KeyBank.
Chad Robley, CEO of Mindgruve, commented, “While we have done our share of acquisitions in the past, it was mission critical to secure the necessary capital to complete the Levelwing acquisition in an expedited time frame. The Livingstone team impressed us from the start with their clear and concise presentation of the broad process, while still adhering to a tight timeline. We are pleased with the outcome, having a world-class commercial bank, KeyBank, as our new trusted financial partner. Tom and his team greatly exceeded our expectations.”
Tom Lesch, Partner at Livingstone, added, “The process for Mindgruve was unique in that we had to go broad, soliciting bids from commercial banks, unitranche debt funds, and mezzanine lenders. Our goal was to gather feedback across capital structures and find the right fit for Chad and his team that would allow them to integrate and operate the combined business, while also having dry powder available to support future growth of the company.”
DLA Piper served as M&A and financing counsel for Mindgruve. This transaction marks another milestone for Livingstone, a strong start to 2025, and adds to other recent transactions such as the refinancings of Kruger Family Industries and Super7.
