Advanced TV ad platform Cadent is in the process of acquiring EMX by Big Village’s SSP technology in a bankruptcy auction.
Cadent confirmed that it is pursuing the acquisition in a statement provided to AdExchanger.
“We can confirm Cadent was the highest bidder of Big Village’s ENGINE Media Exchange (EMX) and are currently going through the court process,” the statement read. “This was a strategic asset and our plans are to integrate the technology within our existing platform.”
Cadent wouldn’t reveal the price of its winning bid, though court documents specifying the deal price will eventually become public.
Employees who worked on EMX’s SSP will be hired by Cadent as part of the deal. Cadent also didn’t share the exact number of EMX team members it will take on.
EMX’s SSP tech will supplement Cadent’s Aperture Platform. Aperture offers planning, targeting, measurement and activation tools for buyers and sellers running advanced TV campaigns across linear, broadcast and CTV.
Adding EMX will bring in more sell-side content curation capabilities and augment Aperture’s overall tech, Cadent’s CMO Paul Alfieri told AdExchanger.
“The future of TV is data and audiences,” Alfieri said. Acquiring EMX’s technology “is all about figuring out the best way to combine data and audiences to help an advertiser reach those fragmented viewers as they scatter across linear and CTV.”
Building a more robust SSP offering will also allow Cadent to more effectively manage its publisher relationships, Alfieri said.
Although EMX’s SSP has display advertising capabilities, the acquisition is not an attempt by Cadent to expand its platform into display advertising, Alfieri said. The company remains focused on TV and CTV.
EMX was up for sale after its parent company Big Village filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware earlier this year, following months of non-payments to clients.
Stephens Investment Banking oversaw the auction for EMX’s tech, according to a source familiar with the bidding process. Interested companies were given access to EMX’s financial and technical information.
By acquiring EMX, Cadent risks inheriting the SSP’s bad reputation. EMX had burned major CTV platforms like Pluto TV, Samsung, Hulu and Roku. However, reputational harm was not a major concern for an established TV ad platform like Cadent, which has its own existing relationships with CTV companies, Alfieri said.
If Cadent’s acquisition is approved by the bankruptcy court, it would not be liable for repaying EMX or Big Village’s debts, since the acquisition only includes EMX’s tech and team members, not the business itself or its relationships, according to Cadent.
However, it is likely that any funds earned by Big Village as a result of selling EMX’s technology would have to be paid out to EMX’s creditors.
EMX had been trying to pivot into CTV at the time of its bankruptcy, and Cadent sees its digital native status as an asset.
“When you look at how audiences watch TV, it’s generally around one-third linear, one-third broadcast and one-third CTV, so audiences are watching across different types of devices,” Alfieri said. “Bringing converged TV solutions to the marketplace is of the utmost importance, and the EMX assets help us along that journey.”
In that sense, the EMX acquisition is aligned with Cadent’s other recent efforts to bolster its converged TV offering, Alfieri said.
Cadent entered a clean room partnership with Google Cloud in February, which the company said will enable interoperability between advertisers’ and CTV platforms’ audience graphs. And Cadent is bringing in purchase data to its ad decisioning through a multiyear partnership with shopper intelligence company Catalina it signed on Tuesday, which the company positioned as a move to improve reach and frequency capping for CTV campaigns.
