Taradel, a 20-year-old Innsbrook-based marketing company, has been acquired by Georgia-based private equity-backed competitor UpSwell. The deal was finalized on December 24, 2024, and announced on February 20, 2025. Terms were not disclosed.
Taradel was founded in 2003 by Jim Fitzgerald, who started the company out of a spare bedroom in his home after decades in the print industry. The nearly 40-person firm offers direct mail, online advertising, and a web-based mapping tool to small and medium-sized businesses. Fitzgerald said the company began to seek out a buyer last year to continue looking for ways to grow the business.
He enlisted mergers and acquisitions advisory firm JEGI Clarity to help with the process. Around 100 companies were considered as potential acquirers, and the list was narrowed down to 10 finalists. While Taradel received a few offers, UpSwell ultimately felt like the right choice.
UpSwell, a portfolio company of private equity firm Clearview Capital, provides direct mail and digital marketing to businesses in the U.S. and Canada. “The most important thing to me was continuity,” Fitzgerald said, “and to partner with a company that I knew was going to recognize the value of the team we assembled, and also continue with the brand, and that’s their intention.”
Taradel’s brand and its office at 4192 Innslake Drive will remain, and the firm will operate as a division of UpSwell specializing in self-service, e-commerce marketing.
Expanding Taradel’s marketing resources
Current COO Wendy Urquhart will serve as president of the division, and Fitzgerald will also remain with the company. Direct mail is Taradel’s primary marketing option. Through its web-based application Mapfire, the company shows its business customers postal routes with the highest concentration of their target audience.
It also works with businesses on media marketing across up to seven different channels. Taradel has served more than 30,000 clients over the years, including FedEx Office, Staples, Canada Post, and USPS. Fitzgerald said the sale to UpSwell provides more resources for Taradel, including access to more technology and performance reporting.
Offerings will also expand to include paid search, a marketing strategy that allows companies to pay search engines to place ads higher on search engine pages. “They do a lot of direct mail. They have buying power beyond what we have, so it gives us access to more print partners nationally,” he said.
“I think it’s a great culture fit.”
UpSwell was founded in 2020 out of a merger between Mudlick Mail, an auto-repair, dental, and chiropractic direct mailer, and Muscle Up Marketing, a fitness marketing agency. It currently has around 75 employees.
