What Matchfire does

Matchfire is a US-based, privately held digital marketing and design agency founded in 2000, operating from three offices in San Luis Obispo (CA), Dallas (TX), and New York (NY) under a partner-led leadership bench (CEO Chris Noble, President Joey Leslie, Managing Partner Brian Powell, CTO Brian Nance, Executive Creative Director Lea Brandy). The firm sells integrated, project-based engagements across six solution lines: Social Purpose, Brand Identity & Design, Website Design & Development, Strategy & Partnerships, Experiences, and Digital Marketing, serving a client mix that spans Fortune-level enterprises (LG, Adobe Sign, American Airlines, MarketAxess, American Heritage Chocolate/Mars), mid-market companies (Meathead Movers, Ivybrook Academy, Grapes & Grains), and a deep roster of nonprofits and global NGOs (UNICEF, UNDP, CARE, American Heart Association, Alzheimer's Association, NDN Collective).

Under the hood, Matchfire builds custom digital platforms using headless/decoupled CMS architecture (Drupal and WordPress) with React front-ends over GraphQL APIs, layered with CloudFlare Global CDN, Varnish caching, and a proprietary caching/fallback mechanism for high-performance financial and enterprise sites. It maintains integrations with Klaviyo, Blackbaud, Classy, Convio, and HotJar, and operates an internal proprietary data-analysis layer ('Matchfire Data Intelligence') that applies machine learning to conversation and audience data for psychographic profiling, brand valuation, and donor targeting.

The business model is professional services — custom-scoped project SOWs, multi-year retainers (e.g., 9+ year American Heritage Chocolate engagement, ASI retainer, LG Experience Happiness multi-year program), and recurring managed-services revenue from hosting, monitoring, and analytics (e.g., Ivybrook Academy 99.9% uptime SLA). Pricing is not publicly disclosed; engagements are negotiated per client. The firm also derives revenue from co-branded partner activations (Mastercard, Daybreaker, MBooth) and earns reputational lift from a steady stream of industry awards (MUSE, Indigo, MarComm, AVA, Shorty, NAB Leadership Foundation).

Name

Matchfire

Legal name

Matchfire

Website

https://matchfire.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Matchfire is a privately held US digital marketing and design agency founded in 2000, serving Fortune enterprises, mid-market firms, and nonprofits with integrated brand, web, digital marketing, and purpose-led campaign services across offices in California, Texas, and New York.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Digital Marketing and Design Services

NAICS

Direct Mail Advertising (54186)

SIC

Services-Direct Mail Advertising Services (7331), Services-Advertising Agencies (7311)

akta.pro primary industry

Lead Distribution, CRM/MarTech Integration & Sync (THAHAGAM)

Keywords

• Digital marketing agency
• Brand identity design
• Website design development
• Social purpose campaigns
• Integrated marketing services

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Agency professional services — project-based engagements: Matchfire sells project-based digital marketing, brand identity, web design/development, strategy and experiential engagements to enterprise and nonprofit clients (e.g., MarketAxess platform rebuild, American Heritage Chocolate ongoing retainer). Revenue is driven by scoping individual projects and SOWs.
2. Retainer / always-on engagements: Matchfire maintains ongoing retainer relationships with select clients (e.g., ASI retainer for continuous support; American Heritage Chocolate long-running 9+ year agency partnership including content, email, SEO and website management).
3. Hosting, monitoring and analytics managed services: Recurring managed-services revenue from hosting, daily monitoring, full backups, 99.9% uptime guarantee, role-based access control, and monthly Google Analytics reporting for clients such as Ivybrook Academy.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Matchfire is an award-winning digital marketing and design agency that delivers integrated strategy, brand identity, custom website design and development, digital marketing, experiences, and social-purpose campaigns for nonprofits, Fortune-level enterprises, and high-growth startups. Engagements span project-based builds, ongoing retainers, and managed hosting/analytics services, often delivered as bundled end-to-end programs combining creative, full-stack development, and proprietary audience-intelligence analysis.

Product overview

Matchfire is an award-winning digital marketing and design agency that delivers integrated solutions across six core service offerings: Social Purpose, Brand Identity & Design, Website Design & Development, Strategy & Partnerships, Experiences, and Digital Marketing. Rather than a single unified product, Matchfire's portfolio is a set of coordinated service modules that combine strategy, creative, technology, and proprietary capabilities such as the Brand Value Dive (purpose/positioning methodology) and Matchfire Data Intelligence (proprietary analytics tooling). Client engagements typically bundle several of these offerings together—for example, a Social Purpose program may be paired with a Brand Identity refresh, a custom Website Design & Development build (often headless Drupal/WordPress with React frontends), Digital Marketing activation, and Experiences—producing end-to-end campaigns, brands, and platforms for nonprofits and corporations.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Social Purpose End-to-end purpose-driven campaigns, cause-marketing activations, and social-impact programs for nonprofits and corporations, combining brand storytelling, fundraising infrastructure, partnership strategy, and measurable outcome reporting.
• Brand Identity & Design Custom brand identity systems including positioning, logo development, color and typography, key messaging, package design, and identity guidelines delivered through an immersion-driven creative process.
• Website Design & Development Custom websites, content management systems, and rich internet applications built for evergreen and seasonal branding/fundraising, leveraging headless architecture, component-based CMS frameworks (Drupal and WordPress), and full-stack development.
• Strategy & Partnerships Business and marketing strategy, integrated marketing platform development, partnership classification and identification, and design-thinking solutions that align intent with impact to maximize performance and purpose.
• Experiences Customer-centric, data-informed physical and virtual experience design for brands and nonprofits that influence key moments and behaviors along the platform journey, combining audience insights with emotive strategy.
• Digital Marketing Cross-channel digital marketing combining data, experience, creative messaging, and relevant delivery to create value for existing brand advocates while educating and attracting new audiences.
• Brand Value Dive A proprietary, empathy-driven branding methodology that brings multiple stakeholders together through immersion and co-creation to surface positioning, value proposition, and identity narrative.
• Matchfire Data Intelligence Proprietary data analysis tooling that values brands, profiles audiences and volunteers, and surfaces demographic, psychographic, and brand-affinity insights used to drive strategy and partnership recommendations.

Quantifiable outcome

• 50% faster load times and 30% increase in organic traffic for CareOne website redesign
• +10 more outcomes

Named customers52 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration12 records

AI capability7 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

23 partnerships are on record, tiered major / flagship co-marketing partnership, major co-marketing partner for flagship lg experience happiness activation, core fundraising integration partner, core peer-to-peer fundraising platform integration, core peer-to-peer platform for major nonprofit engagements, core analytics/ux partner for marketaxess engagement, core email automation partner for commerce builds, core infrastructure partner for performance-critical enterprise builds, core cms used for enterprise and education builds, core cms used across multiple client builds, core front-end framework used for enterprise and consumer builds, major seo and listings platform partner, regional seo / listings partner, supporting pr partner on flagship lg activation, supporting creative/agency partner on lg activation, featured nonprofit/school partner for flagship lg activation, lead educational partner in lg experience happiness platform, lead research partner in lg experience happiness platform, lead educational resource partner in lg experience happiness platform and nonprofit program partner in lg experience happiness platform.

• Mastercardmajor / flagship co-marketing partnershipStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for CARE Package (CARE COVID-19 response): enabled direct integration so users could buy and send digital gift cards through the CARE site powered by Mastercard rails. The website integrated directly with a third-party Mastercard system to enable gifting and donations.
• Daybreakermajor co-marketing partner for flagship lg experience happiness activationGTM or Marketing PartnerCo-produced the LG Experience Happiness International Day of Happiness sunrise dance party at One World Observatory in NYC, with 400 attendees, MBooth as digital PR agency, HS Ad, and Daybreaker's 500K+ global community.
• Blackbaudcore fundraising integration partnerTechnology or IntegrationBlackbaud integration enabled UNICEF Trick-or-Treat fundraising efforts and social-media-driven viral engagements in year 1, with a 250% KPI increase in year 2.
• Classycore peer-to-peer fundraising platform integrationTechnology or IntegrationClassy integration underpins peer-to-peer fundraising microsites for National Geographic's Build a Boma campaign and the GOOD+ Foundation site.
• Conviocore peer-to-peer platform for major nonprofit engagementsTechnology or IntegrationConvio installation customized for the Alzheimer's Association 'The Longest Day' peer-to-peer fundraising effort, supporting a custom mobile app and social/SMS updates.
• HotJarcore analytics/ux partner for marketaxess engagementTechnology or IntegrationHotJar used as part of Matchfire's analytics stack for the MarketAxess website rebuild, enabling visual user-behavior review and iterative Agile optimization.
• Klaviyocore email automation partner for commerce buildsTechnology or IntegrationKlaviyo powers custom email automations (order confirmations, back-in-stock alerts) integrated with Grapes & Grains Merchants e-commerce backend.
• CloudFlarecore infrastructure partner for performance-critical enterprise buildsTechnology or IntegrationCloudFlare Global CDN combined with Varnish caching and Matchfire's own caching/fallback mechanism to deliver secure, high-performance pages for the MarketAxess financial platform.
• Varnishcore infrastructure partner for performance-critical enterprise buildsTechnology or IntegrationVarnish caching deployed alongside CloudFlare CDN and Matchfire's own caching layer for the MarketAxess decoupled front end.
• Drupalcore cms used for enterprise and education buildsTechnology or IntegrationDrupal underpins the headless/decoupled CMS for the MarketAxess website (GraphQL front-end) and Teach.org (custom personalized career roadmap tool and program search).
• WordPresscore cms used across multiple client buildsTechnology or IntegrationWordPress is the foundation CMS for the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston site (custom post types, event calendar) and the ASI website (fully custom theme with flexible component-based pages).
• Reactcore front-end framework used for enterprise and consumer buildsTechnology or IntegrationReact components are wired into the headless Drupal/GraphQL front-end for MarketAxess and power search and interactive UI in the American Heritage Chocolate build.
• Googlemajor seo and listings platform partnerTechnology or IntegrationMatchfire optimizes Meathead Movers' local presence and listings via Google (alongside Yelp and Yext) as Meathead expands into new regions.
• Yelpregional seo / listings partnerTechnology or IntegrationLocal listings partner for Meathead Movers regional expansion, alongside Google and Yext.
• Yextregional seo / listings partnerTechnology or IntegrationLocal listings partner for Meathead Movers regional expansion, alongside Google and Yelp.
• MBoothsupporting pr partner on flagship lg activationGTM or Marketing PartnerDigital PR agency partner for the LG Experience Happiness International Day of Happiness event, co-led with Matchfire and Daybreaker.
• HS Adsupporting creative/agency partner on lg activationGTM or Marketing PartnerCreative agency partner co-producing the LG International Day of Happiness sunrise event with Matchfire, Daybreaker and MBooth.
• Greenburgh North-Castle Union Free School Districtfeatured nonprofit/school partner for flagship lg activationOthersParticipating school district for the LG Experience Happiness program; students from this district performed the 'happy dance' on the rooftop of One World Trade Center on International Day of Happiness.
• CASELlead educational partner in lg experience happiness platformStrategic or Co-development PartnerCASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) is a lead educational resource partner for the LG Experience Happiness platform co-developed with Matchfire.
• Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeleylead research partner in lg experience happiness platformStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch partner for LG Experience Happiness — provides the science and research backing for the Sustainable Happiness Skills framework.
• Discovery Educationlead educational resource partner in lg experience happiness platformStrategic or Co-development PartnerEducational resource partner helping deliver LG Experience Happiness curriculum to US schools.
• Inner Explorernonprofit program partner in lg experience happiness platformStrategic or Co-development PartnerNonprofit partner delivering daily mindfulness curriculum within the LG Experience Happiness program; all Daybreaker ticket proceeds went to Inner Explorer.
• Project Happinessnonprofit program partner in lg experience happiness platformStrategic or Co-development PartnerNonprofit partner delivering the LG Experience Happiness Sustainable Happiness Skills curriculum to schools.

Scale indicators15 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Mekanism: Independent creative agency known for purpose-driven, cause-marketing campaigns and integrated brand plus digital execution. Comparable on the 'Social Purpose' / cause-marketing positioning and outcome-based storytelling approach.
• Code and Theory: Digital-first creative and technology agency blending brand, content, and enterprise platform engineering. Comparable to Matchfire's full-stack delivery model (strategy, brand, Drupal/headless builds, custom front-ends) for enterprise and nonprofit clients.
• Huge: Large digital experience agency combining brand, design, and custom technology builds for enterprise and consumer clients. Comparable on headless CMS, custom platform builds, and integrated brand-plus-product engagements.
• Blue State: Digital agency purpose-built for nonprofits, advocacy, and cause-driven organizations — directly overlapping Matchfire's 'Social Purpose' vertical and nonprofit roster (UN agencies, advocacy orgs, fundraising platforms).
• Whole Whale: Boutique digital agency specializing in nonprofit and impact organizations with a strong focus on data, analytics, and peer-to-peer fundraising (Classy/Blackbaud integrations). Direct peer in Matchfire's nonprofit vertical with comparable technical and measurement capabilities.
• R/GA: Global integrated digital agency with a strong purpose-marketing and brand-plus-tech offering (similar combination of strategy, brand, and digital product builds). Comparable in serving Fortune-grade clients across CPG, nonprofit, and consumer verticals with a proprietary data/tech layer.

Emerging players

• Yulu: Purpose-driven impact agency delivering brand, fundraising, and digital builds for nonprofits and social enterprises. Comparable in mission alignment and nonprofit vertical, though typically smaller in scope and tech stack than Matchfire.

Others

• The Ad Council: Nonprofit organization that produces cause-marketing and social-impact campaigns for federal and nonprofit partners. Adjacent ecosystem participant — Matchfire serves many of the same types of cause-driven clients and programs.

Broad incumbents

• Deloitte Digital: Large consulting-led digital agency with enterprise platform engineering, brand, and purpose-marketing capabilities. Competes for the same enterprise-grade digital and platform RFPs (e.g., financial services, healthcare, global nonprofit) as Matchfire at much larger scale.
• AKQA: Established global creative and digital innovation agency with broader portfolio across enterprise, consumer, and purpose clients. Larger-scope incumbent with overlapping capabilities in brand identity, digital platforms, and cause-related campaigns.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/matchfireco
• Facebookfacebook.com/matchfireco
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/matchfire-co-

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A1 record

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Matchfire