Made acquires Rombit Studio

'We have been working closely together for years. At some point it was just logic itself that we would merge.' Simon de Smet, the CEO and co-founder of the innovation agency Made, and Thomas Pels, the CEO of Rombit Studio, sit side by side at a bright white table in their office on Antwerp's Meir. As they tell their story, they complement each other's sentences. It seems symbolic of what they have to say: a story about two companies that complemented each other so well that they became one.

Made was founded 16 years ago by de Smet and Timothy Macken as a design and innovation agency. Together with clients from the healthcare and technology sectors, among others, they examined ideas and challenges in order to arrive at both a well-founded vision of the future and concrete product designs. Two phases that de Smet calls 'define & design'. The agency was involved in the development of the meeting solution Clickshare of the Kortrijk-based global player Barco and is helping to develop the strategy and new product lines of the kitchen specialist Novy.

As a new company, Made wants to market itself as a one-stop shop for the entire innovation process. This is a necessary evolution that customers themselves are begging for, de Smet explains. 'Our world past five years has changed a lot. With corona and an energy crisis, as well as increasingly complex regulation, companies are facing many challenges. In such a difficult macroeconomic context, our customers are also looking much more critically at their innovation process. It makes perfect sense for them to turn over every euro twice. Companies no longer want to spend thousands of euros on a report that they have to extract the essence from themselves.'

That famed design firm IDEO laid off up to a third of its staff early this month endorses that point, de Smet says. "That's not an anomaly. The days of classic consulting are really behind us. One company saying how to innovate and then a second company saying why not, because they didn't think together, that flyer no longer applies. We guide our clients as an innovation partner from A to Z, with researchers, strategists, designers as well as engineers at the table. That's the path we take together.'

After "define & design," ideally follows "deliver," a phase in which the client ends up with an effective product in hand. To this end, Made has increasingly worked with Rombit Studio in recent years. This subsidiary of the technology group Rombit - which itself morphs into Techyard - specializes in devising and implementing customized solutions ahead of challenges faced mainly by industrial companies. 'That was the perfect match,' Pels explains. 'We also did design, but we are particularly strong in execution. We saw over the past few years how we complemented each other perfectly.'

Thomas Pels and Simon de Smet are the co-CEOs of the merged Made (photo by ©Jeffrey Torremans)

One stop shop

The result is now a merger of the two companies, with the whole continuing under the name Made. The two companies are merging as equals, but Macken is taking advantage of the new construction to exit and sell his stake to Techyard. This gives entrepreneur Jorik Rombouts' group a total of 75 percent. De Smet and Pels are at the helm together as co-CEOs. "But as before, Simon will be more concerned with commercial growth and Thomas more with operations," Rombouts says.

Focus on sustainability

With healthcare, manufacturing, port industry and consumer products, Made focuses primarily on four sectors, Pels explains. 'These are industries that we each know well from our own past. That deep sector knowledge and maturity are essential if, like us, you want to build long-term relationships with your clients. If you come to us with a problem, we know in advance, so to speak, what you're going to ask or where the pain points and bottlenecks in your value chain lie.'

A core focus that cuts across the other verticals is sustainability. The intention is for ESG experts to sit around the table in every innovation process, so that every problem to be solved is approached from that angle. 'In really everything we do, sustainability becomes a focal point,' says Rombouts. 'We see that as our moral duty as designers, but it is also an additional argument for working with us.'

Made will clock in at 8.5 million euros in sales this year with about 75 employees. Next year that should comfortably top 10 million euros, with about 100 people in offices in Antwerp, Dubai and the US.