Health communications agency Kyne has agreed to a network partnership with Agora Public Affairs & Strategic Communications to extend its reach to Latin America and South America.

The network partnership will expand Kyne’s reach to cities in Latin America including Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Bogota and Medellin in Colombia. The firm has a presence in New York, Los Angeles, and Dublin.

“At the beginning, it was about global reach,” said Kyne founder and CEO David Kyne (pictured above). “We do quite a bit of work in Africa, as well and Europe and the U.S., and we think it’s really important when you’re doing work regionally that you have local expertise.”

Kyne global clients were looking for support in Latin and South America, which pushed the agency to agree to the network partnership, he added, as well as a year of strong growth in 2017. Last year, Kyne’s revenue was up 63% from the previous year to $9.6 million. The agency also nearly doubled it staff in 2017 from 26 to 43 employees.

“We’re working for a couple pharma clients where some of the Latin American markets are important to the global work, and we’re working with Agora on one of those initiatives,” Kyne said. “We also do quite a bit of work on the public health side, in everything from work we’ve done previously in malaria and vaccines, and we haven’t previously had the reach to execute.”

The partnership will also add Agora’s public and government affairs expertise to Kyne’s capabilities. Kyne said his firm has done some work in public affairs but wants to strengthen that offering globally.

For Agora, which shares some clients with Kyne, the partnership will add reach into the U.S. and European markets.

Agora, founded in 2014, is part of the Untold network of agencies, which also includes South American firms such as Fogdog, The Juju, Juju Studio, and Quiddity. Agora’s client roster includes major pharma companies such as Bayer and Pfizer, tech giants Microsoft and Motorola, and consumer brands Nestle and Royal Canin.