Press release

W2O Announces Investment from New Mountain Capital; Partnership Focused on Making the World a Healthier Place through Marketing Communications

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W2O, the leading independent provider of analytics-driven, digital-first
marketing communications to the healthcare sector, today announced it
has partnered with New Mountain Capital to accelerate continued growth
and scale of the company to meet the evolving needs of its clients to
most effectively and efficiently communicate with and influence their
key stakeholders in an increasingly digital and mobile world.

The current W2O management team will remain in place, and both Jim
Weiss, W2O Founder and CEO, and Jennifer Gottlieb, W2O President, will
serve on the board of directors. The transaction is expected to close in
the first half of W2O’s fiscal year 2019, subject to customary approvals
and closing conditions. Current investment partner Mountaingate Capital
is exiting W2O in the transaction. CG Petsky Prunier, part of the
Canaccord Genuity Group, and Houlihan Lokey served as financial advisors
to W2O and Mountaingate Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.

In 2016, W2O partnered with Mountaingate to fund the firm’s strategic
growth plans, which included three acquisitions – Pure Communications,
Marketeching and Sentient – in addition to hiring key talent and making
focused investments to expand and enhance its highly integrated
technology and service offerings. Since that time, the firm’s revenues
more than doubled from just under $100 million annually in 2016 with
just over 400 people to anticipated revenues of more than $200 million
in 2019 with nearly 800 people.

“We achieved in three years what we planned to do in five, so we were
looking for a new partner that could help us maintain our momentum while
preserving our dynamic, entrepreneurial culture that provides consistent
career growth, innovation, and learning and development opportunities
for our people,” said Weiss. “New Mountain is the right partner for this
next inflection point in our evolution, one that aligns with an
inflection point in healthcare as the sector continues to be impacted by
technology at an unprecedented pace. Working with New Mountain, we will
continue building and acquiring talent and companies with capabilities
that clients have told us they need and want, and facilitate expansion
in key markets overseas and in the U.S.”

“This partnership enables us to continue to control our own destiny and
pursue our goal of ‘Becoming the Best’ for our clients, and to achieve a
renewed mission to make the world a healthier place through marketing
communications,” said Gottlieb. “There’s nothing more important than
your health, and the future leaders in healthcare will be those that can
communicate and compete most effectively in a mobile and digital world
through both traditional and non-traditional media channels guided by
next-generation analytics. We will not only continue to build and model
our business to help our clients achieve this, but also become a digital
health player in our own right.”

“W2O is a true leader in healthcare marketing, communications and
analytics. We are excited to partner with Jim and his amazing team to
support their next phase of growth as a key player in the evolution of
the segment,” said Matt Holt, Managing Director at New Mountain Capital.
“Healthcare is just beginning to discover new forces in medicine,
prevention and cures, and W2O is participating with leading client
organizations throughout the healthcare continuum. Our partnership is
meant to support investments in key areas while enabling W2O to maintain
its successful entrepreneurial culture, commitment to innovation, and
unmatched client focus.”

According to Bruce Rogers, Managing Director of Mountaingate Capital,
which initially partnered with W2O on this growth strategy, “W2O and its
team exceeded our expectations in every way, successfully assimilating
acquisitions, on-boarding talent and delivering data-driven insights to
inform strategy and programming to achieve a competitive advantage for
clients. This is a stellar team committed to client excellence, employee
experience and development, and elevating the healthcare ecosystem. We
are very pleased to see W2O advance to its next phase of growth with New
Mountain Capital and wish Jim and the team the best for continued
success.”

Mountaingate Capital

Mountaingate Capital is a private equity firm based in Denver that
specializes in building and empowering companies with strong growth
potential and engaged leadership teams. Mountaingate’s focus on organic
growth coupled with its proven customer-centric buy-and-build approach
for add-on acquisitions and shared equity ownership with management
creates more value for the end customer, while forging stronger, more
collaborative, and more successful investment partnerships with
management teams. Mountaingate targets investments in new platform
companies typically with $5 million to $25 million of EBITDA. For more
information on Mountaingate, please visit http://mountaingate.com.

About New Mountain Capital

New Mountain Capital is a New York-based investment firm that emphasizes
business building and growth, rather than debt, as it pursues long-term
capital appreciation. The firm currently manages private equity, public
equity, and credit funds with over $20 billion in assets under
management. New Mountain seeks out what it believes to be the highest
quality growth leaders in carefully selected industry sectors and then
works intensively with management to build the value of these companies.
For more information on New Mountain Capital, please visit www.newmountaincapital.com.

About W2O

Founded by Jim Weiss in 2001, W2O is the leading independent provider of
analytics-driven, digital-first marketing services and communications to
the healthcare sector. W2O applies proprietary analytics models,
methodologies and approaches in a digital world to design precise
communications and marketing strategies to deliver sustained business
results. W2O maintains 15 offices across the United States and in Europe.

For more information, please visit www.w2ogroup.com.

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