Poppulo Acquires REACH Media Network, Giving Parent Firm A Distinct SMB-Focused Solutions Option

March 4, 2025 by Dave Haynes

Were there any doubts about whether Poppulo had its attention back on the digital signage market, the company that many industry lifers will know more as Four Winds Interactive has acquired a software competitor, with REACH Media Network now part of Poppulo but continuing on as a separate entity chasing the SMB business that its parent is not really set up to go after and then service.

I had a briefing on the deal with Poppulo CEO Ruth Fornell, who explained that her Denver-based company has about 4,500 customers and a network of more than half a million screens, while Minneapolis-based REACH has more than 9,000 customers, but that rolls up to 25,000 screens globally. So Poppulo averages north of 100 screens per customer while REACH is less than three.

“We’re in the enterprise,” says Fornell. “We’re in these larger, more complex, real-time, data, multiple-screen kinds of deployments, and everything that comes with that reaches in much more to the mid-market. So we’re going into this thinking this is really two different businesses. We will find ways to have the teams work together, share best practices, innovate together … but we think there’s room to have different products serving different market requirements.”

Fornell expects there will be a reciprocity thing happening, in that opportunities that come into Poppulo that are because of scale or for other reasons in Poppulo’s wheelhouse will get directed to REACH, while there will be enterprise jobs that land at REACH that perhaps better fit what Poppulo does.

As a refresher, Four Winds was for many years all digital signage, with a focus on multiple market segments like casinos, hospitality and airlines/airports. After Four Winds was acquired by a private equity firm, the company was then merged with an Irish firm, Poppulo, that was focused on workplace communications. The go-forward pitch was the blended entity offered the “most comprehensive omni-channel employee communications platform.”

So a lot of people, like me, looked at Poppulo as being heads-down focused on chasing workplace experience business that has digital signage among its capabilities. But the company has remained very much active in digital signage, though kinda quietly. Its clients for that include Delta Airlines and, I’m pretty sure, MGM Resorts.

In the past year, as Fornell has got her feet under her running a new (to her) company in an unfamiliar market segment (she came from retail systems), Poppulo has re-emerged as a notable player, with more visible marketing and vendor stands at industry shows like InfoComm and, just recently, ISE.

There are lotsa smaller CMS software companies who would have happily entertained a “liquidity event” with a private equity-backed company like Poppulo, so I was curious what it was about REACH that made the deal happen.

“I would say this checked many boxes,” says Fornell. “It expanded our market. Our assessment of the product is it’s very solid. Their customer satisfaction is very high. Their customer retention is very high. Culturally, we’ve spent a lot of time with the REACH team over the past several months, and I think we’ll work together very well.”

The deal is done and Fornell is meeting today with the REACH team. District Capital Partners (“DCP”) were exclusive financial advisors to Poppulo in the transaction. I asked, but no deal terms are being shared.

REACH CEO Darren Wercinski will stick around for a while to ease transition, but will ultimately move on, says Fornell. That almost always happens with PE-backed acquisitions – as it is hard to be a co-founder and the boss, and then be working with and for someone else.

The other high profile REACH person, EVP Sales Kiersten Gibson, will stick around and have, says Fornell, a “very significant role” going forward.

This makes sense to me, and I like the approach of keeping the two entities distinct to serve different markets. There will likely be some tension around when an SMB deal is big enough to be regarded as an enterprise deal, but that’s not a new or unique problem.

Congratulations, all.