The Lifetime Value Co. (“LTV” or the “Company”), a creator of leading online consumer and business information brands that helps people discover, understand and use data, announced today a $150 million investment led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital with participation from investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Credit Partners, Morgan Stanley Tactical Value, and ROCA Partners. This investment will represent the Company’s first institutional fundraise and will accelerate LTV’s efforts to enhance its data capabilities, expand its team and invest in additional marketing and partnership opportunities.
Founded in 2007 by Josh Levy and Ross Cohen and bootstrapped to date, LTV owns and operates a portfolio of online properties that provide rich analytical search capabilities on people, businesses, real estate and automobiles. LTV’s online technology platform helps users answer everyday life questions, big and small, ranging from “What is that potential client’s contact info?” to “Who is calling me?” to “Has the car I am buying been in an accident?” to “What is my house worth?”. Over 30 million monthly visitors and millions of subscribers have utilized the Company’s suite of online products.
LTV integrates rich datasets, user-friendly features and artificial intelligence equipping users to go beyond simple search engine results to get the most actionable information to assist in making more informed decisions. The Lifetime Value Co. portfolio of brands include:
- Ownerly.com – Provides consumers with professional home value data and insights;
- Bumper.com – Provides consumers with modern day car purchasing and ownership tools including vehicle history reports;
- BeenVerified.com – Provides users with access to public information that had previously been difficult to obtain and does so in a manner that is easy, affordable and fast;
- PeopleSmart.com – Provides sales professionals with the ability to reach the right people and empower business growth; and
- NeighborWho.com – Provides real estate shoppers and professionals with access to in-depth property record data used to help make homeownership and investing decisions.
“Since Ross and I started the company in 2007, we always dreamed of leveraging our platform to build great brands”, said The Lifetime Value Co. co-founder Josh Levy. Levy continued, “Partnering with Morgan Stanley and ROCA will not only help strengthen the capabilities of our existing brands but will also help us to bring greater access to more users, partners, and leverage our technology into exciting new opportunities.”
“Our goal has always been to create a premium information bundle for our customers built by a team of great people”, said co-founder Ross Cohen. “This opportunity allows us to continue to build out our ecosystem of data capabilities, which will be utilized across all our brands and add new team members that fit our hard working and entrepreneurial culture.”
This transaction will empower LTV to continue incubating and marketing new products, enrich its datasets and enhance the user experience across its properties, while continuing to make data available at lower costs to an increasingly growing demand. This will further LTV’s ability to increase the value provided to users over time and provides additional channels and marketing expansion to an increasingly broader customer base through a multitude of data-driven brands.
“Since meeting Josh and Ross nine years ago, we have witnessed the Company’s impressive success and growth that has quietly catapulted LTV to become a leading player in the attractive online information services category. As business and people interactions continue to move online, information on who you are interacting with is becoming critical – whether seeking new sales leads or online dating or just conducting self-research”, said Robert Bassman, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital. “Josh and Ross have bootstrapped the Company to an impressive scale while fostering an entrepreneurial and high performance culture. We are excited to partner with LTV to support its continued growth of brands, leverage its product capabilities to integrate datasets and expand into new categories”, added Bassman.
Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, Morgan Stanley Credit Partners and Morgan Stanley Tactical Value are part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Private Credit & Equity platform.
About The Lifetime Value Co.
The Lifetime Value Co. is an information services technology platform comprising a portfolio of brands that provide easy access to information to help make all of life’s decisions, big and small. LTV’s brands include best-in-class web-based and mobile products that put the power of data into the hands of customers. Millions of people trust LTV for insight into people, properties, businesses, and vehicles. LTV is powered by its global team of 150 employees. For further information about The Lifetime Value Co., please visit www.ltvco.com.
About Morgan Stanley Private Credit & Equity
Morgan Stanley Private Credit & Equity, part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, is comprised of eight investment strategies providing capital with a focus on middle-market companies. The division’s investments range from minority equity stakes in growth businesses to majority control of more mature companies. Investment strategies focus on high-quality businesses that are leading players in their industries and have significant growth potential. Morgan Stanley Private Credit & Equity is uniquely positioned to drive growth in portfolio companies and add value to its investments by leveraging the broader Morgan Stanley franchise. For further information about Morgan Stanley Private Credit & Equity, please visit www.morganstanley.com/im.
About ROCA Partners
ROCA Partners is a Los Angeles-based private equity investment firm focused on providing leading technology-enabled services and healthcare services companies with flexible capital and operational resources to accelerate growth. For further information about ROCA Partners, please visit www.rocapartners.com.
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