Steven Bartlett and Dominic McGregor are to leave Social Chain, six years after co-founding the Manchester-based social media publishing and marketing company that has since grown to over 750 staff and revenues forecast to hit $200million this year.
CEO Bartlett and COO McGregor were just 20 and 21 respectively when they launched the firm and have overseen exponential growth.
As well as Manchester, Social Chain now has bases in Berlin, London, New York and Munich and works with global brands including Amazon, Coca Cola and Apple, and claims an owned media reach of over 2 billion views a month.
Last year, the company merged with German online retailer Lumaland AG to become The Social Chain AG and list on XETRA and the Düsseldorf Stock Exchange.
And it recently announced the largest acquisition in its history, taking a 51% stake in A4D Inc, a Southern Californian digital performance marketing agency.
Bartlett, who has not yet revealed what he plans to do next, said: “Social Chain was conceived on a small desk in the backroom of the uni I had just dropped out of in Manchester. I was 20, full of wild dreams, and I believed we could take on the world.
“What started as a crazy and sometimes ridiculed idea, in the mind of a few drop-out underdogs, at a time when people didn’t believe in the potential of this new thing called social media, turned into the most unforgettable ride of a lifetime.
