Zambezi’s client roster currently includes the likes of TaylorMade, LPL Financial, Traeger Grills and Under Armour. (Zambezi)
Zambezi is selling a majority stake to private equity firm Manna Tree in an unusual deal that shows how agencies can play a role well beyond marketing: helping investors evaluate potential deals and bringing marketing expertise to portfolio companies.
For Zambezi, the arrangement brings capital to expand its media and production capabilities and access to Manna Tree’s network of consumer brands.
The relationship with Manna Tree, which primarily invests in health and wellness consumer businesses, grew out of their shared work with Health-Ade, a Manna Tree investment that Zambezi worked on for four years. The kombucha company was acquired last year by Generous Brands in a deal valued at $500 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. Manna Tree retained a minority stake in Generous Brands, which has in turn become a Zambezi client.
“We started talking to Zambezi and said, ‘Hey, what if we could have a model that could be rinse and repeat?’ Not from a creative standpoint, obviously, because the creative is going to be bespoke brand by brand,” said Ross Iverson, co-founder and managing partner of Manna Tree.
Zambezi “will help us make more informed investment decisions,” he added, “which is a huge edge over a lot of our competition in the space.”
Manna Tree is a global PE firm Iverson co-founded in 2018 with Gabrielle “Ellie” Rubenstein, a daughter of Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein. Beyond Health-Ade, Manna Tree has invested in 15 companies including Gotham Greens, Vital Farms, Good Culture, Plant People and Verde Farms.
Zambezi will continue to operate under its existing management team, including CEO Jean Freeman and President Laura Stayt. The companies declined to disclose the investment amount or exact ownership percentage. Zambezi, one of Ad Age’s top 2026 small agencies, saw revenue grow from $54.1 million in 2024 to $76.7 million last year.
Zambezi is investing in production and tech
Freeman said that holding company upheaval has created opportunities for independent shops like Zambezi capable of serving global brands, which is why it wants to invest more in production and tech. “There’s a lot of business up for grabs,” Freeman said.
Manna Tree’s investment will support expansion of Zambezi’s media services and production arm, FIN Studios. Freeman pointed to sports content as an opportunity, citing the studio’s work with ESPN and the NFL, which she said earned two Sports Emmy nominations last year, and its TaylorMade short film “Finding Fast.”
“We just started rostering directors as a next step within the studio, and we’re starting to get business from agencies because they’re coming to us for our sports expertise,” Freeman said.
AI-enabled content production will be part of that push. “We have a few clients with high-volume content creation where we’re utilizing AI technology within a shared workspace,” Freeman said. “We’ve been piloting that the past year, and I think this is a product the marketplace wants.”
Zambezi also plans to hire its first chief growth officer, who will report to Freeman.
Why Zambezi looked outside the traditional holding company model
Choosing a partner outside the holding company model was deliberate. Freeman wanted Zambezi’s capabilities to complement its investors’ business, giving the agency access to new relationships without competing against similar offerings within the same organization.
“The other thing I knew would make us as successful as we are is if we were coming into an ecosystem where we could be additive, not duplicative,” Freeman said. “That’s why the hold-co model was never at play for us. There are too many people offering the same thing—that, at the end of the day, waters down the work and doesn’t provide the best value for the brand.”
Freeman said Zambezi conducted a formal sale process that lasted about a year. The agency had been approached by buyers over the years, and cultural compatibility was central to choosing a partner. “If we don’t like each other, if we don’t have the same vibe, who cares about the financials? You’re never going to get to where you want to go,” Freeman said.
Female leadership was another point of alignment. Zambezi is led by Freeman and Stayt, while Manna Tree counts Gabrielle Rubenstein among its co-founders; approximately 70% of Manna Tree’s team is female, Iverson said.
Zambezi CEO Jean Freeman. (Zambezi)
There are no plans for Zambezi to narrow its client ambitions to just the wellness category, Freeman said. “It’s more about alignment with brands that have their best days ahead of them—brands that have that growth mindset and that billion-dollar aspiration.”
Zambezi’s current clients include TaylorMade, LPL Financial, Traeger Grills, UKG, Under Armour and Atlantis Bahamas.
Why Manna Tree chose Zambezi
Zambezi represents Manna Tree’s first agency investment—and it’s a strategic move given the types of businesses in which the firm invests.
“That’s the advantage of the small independent agency: you get the real handholding,” Iverson said. “That’s what these brands need at that stage, when they’ve got their eyes on becoming a $1 billion brand. They need that ability to tweak strategy quickly, ask questions [and] go back into the market.”
Manna Tree gains access to strategy, media and production to help growing brands move faster and make better decisions about their marketing spending, said Iverson. He added that while the firm plans to introduce portfolio companies to Zambezi, he does not expect the agency to necessarily handle all of them.
For smaller investments, the companies are considering quarterly think tanks where emerging brands can learn practices that their internal teams can execute before they have budgets for broader agency engagements. “We talk to about 400 consumer brands a year and we invest in two of them,” Iverson said. “So we have a lot of network power to refer on to Zambezi.”
That network has already contributed to new business. Iverson said Manna Tree helped introduce Zambezi to Quest Nutrition, which markets a protein bar manufactured by a company in which Manna Tree has invested.
“Quest Nutrition released an RFP in April, awarded in May, with the ask to have a five-spot campaign ready in September,” Freeman said. “We figured out a way to get it done.” The campaign is now running, and Zambezi is discussing a longer-term engagement for 2027, she said.
While the firm was evaluating whether to invest in Zambezi, it also tasked the agency with handling some due diligence on a consumer brand, which Iverson declined to name. Manna Tree asked the agency to conduct social-listening work and provide a perspective on the consumer brand’s positioning.
Iverson described the prospective investment as a nine-year-old business with revenue of a couple hundred million dollars. Zambezi’s analysis helped Manna Tree examine its strengths, weaknesses and the marketing investment needed to reach its goal of becoming a $1 billion brand.
Manna Tree intends to hold its Zambezi investment for the long term rather than pursue the conventional PE playbook’s three- to five-year exit. “We want to grow smart,” Iverson said. “We want to do more with existing clients, become stickier with them and be more value-added across those multi-services.”
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