Digital technology has radically altered how companies create and capture customer value.

Savvy incumbents harness digital and data to tap new markets, reduce customer acquisition costs, enhance product offerings and allocate capital more wisely.

But digital also has empowered their competitors, with previously unassailable economic “moats” under attack from rivals circumventing distribution barriers and delivering superior online customer experiences.

Frontlight Digital helps middle market investors identify companies positioned to win this digital future through deal origination and due diligence advisory services.

We also help make winners by implementing online marketing and technology programs that accelerate growth in operating companies.

• Consolidated six siloed marketing IT systems into a single integrated platform for a private equity-owned client deploying a roll-up strategy that grew revenues from ~$35M to ~$85M in three years.

• Completed a digital transformation project for a PE-backed security business that resulted in a 64% increase in lead volume from organic search and contributed to a successful corporate acquisition.

• Advised an international PE firm on ecommerce and technical integration risks during due diligence for a platform investment’s follow-on acquisitions.

*We primarily focus on the needs of mid-market investors and their operating companies but have also served some of the largest financial services companies in the world. So our clients know they can trust us when the stakes are high and the challenges complex.

Scott Barstow
Scott has 24 years of experience building software and leading technical teams. He was the second software developer to join Bandwidth (NASDAQ: BAND), a telecommunication technology startup, and served as CTO from 2005-2008. During that time the company tripled revenue each year for three years while launching industry-changing products. He then helped lead a product engineering team at Symantec, building a workflow automation suite to automate IT tasks within Fortune 500 companies. Since 2010 he has worked as a fractional CTO, principal, advisor and investor in emerging technology companies.

Jeff Cooper
Jeff is a data and technology expert, focused on the technical drivers of online marketing performance. He was the youngest Managing Director at Three Ships, a digital agency on the Inc. 5000, where he led the search engine optimization and search advertising departments. He then served as the Director of Product Strategy at Netsertive, a VC-backed advertising technology company, before founding Saltbox—a digital agency specializing in SEO and SEM. Jeff holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.

Ted Baxa
Ted founded Frontlight Digital in 2012. Over six years, Ted grew Frontlight from a laptop on a kitchen table to a thriving boutique consultancy with clients in fifteen states and four countries.

Prior to Frontlight, Ted advised top brands on digital strategy—like Eli Lilly, AARP and Tough Mudder—while helping build one of the fastest-growing agencies in the Southeast. Ted graduated Phi Beta Kappa as a Morehead-Cain Scholar from the University of North Carolina.

Outside of work, Ted enjoys playing guitar, reading, competing in triathlons and telling everyone that he competes in triathlons.