Avenue A / Razorfish Snaps Up French Agency

Duke, a veteran interactive agency with offices in London and Paris, is now an AvenueA / Razorfish company.

In announcing the acquisition on Tuesday, aQuantive subsidiary Avenue A / Razorfish indicated life at Duke — and the work done by the company — shouldn’t change much. The European firm will keep its brand and leadership.

Avenue A / Razorfish paid $7.9 million in cash for the agency, or $6 million Euros, and will make future payments based on Duke’s profit contributions for the next three years.

Like Razorfish, Duke was founded in the go-go days of the late 1990s. But unlike Razorfish’s cocky and controversial creators, Duke’s founders — Christine Santarelli and Matthieu de Lesseux — survived the dark days of the dot-com implosion to remain at the helm of their company eight years later.

Duke has 130 employees. It is profitable and expects net revenue of $12 million to $14 million for the rest of the year. Among Duke’s clients are McDonald’s, Nissan, Procter and Gamble and Nike.

The deal will expand Avenue A / Razorfish’s global footprint. The company, one of the world’s largest in the field of digital, interactive advertising and marketing, has offices across the United States and in Australia, Hong Kong, China, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.