Home Podcast Darren Glatt: Avoiding ‘Zombies’ When Investing In Ad Tech

Darren Glatt: Avoiding ‘Zombies’ When Investing In Ad Tech

SHARE:

This week on the AdExchanger Talks podcast, we’re pleased to talk with Darren Glatt, a seasoned investor and MediaMath board member. Glatt is the guy who led Searchlight Capital’s $225 million investment in MediaMath, which closed almost exactly a year ago. He shares his point of view on the current state of play in ad tech and how MediaMath can grow over the next two to three years.

“Ad tech gets a horrible reputation as a result of the zombie companies and companies that have gone into receivership,” such as Videology and Sizmek, Glatt says. “But there’s still a small but thriving group of independent companies that continues to do very well. And I believe MediaMath to be one of those.”

In that open landscape, there are just a handful of players that matter in the sense of having scale, global coverage and omnichannel capabilities, according to Glatt. MediaMath is one and as such has a large future opportunity if it can maintain discipline and focus, something that has occasionally proven elusive at the company.

“Part of my role as a private equity investor is to say, ‘OK, there are 10 ideas but really only three of them are going to drive 90% of the value,’” he says.

In this episode: What are those three ideas? Will the US break up big tech? Will the telecoms win the TV wars?

Must Read

Infillion Acquires Foursquare, Adding More Location Data To Its Ever-Growing Ad Tech Stack

Infillion checked in with its latest acquisition on Friday: Foursquare. Apparently, if there’s a strategically interesting or distressed ad tech asset on the market, Infillion will find it.

HBO MAX’s Reddit Account Was Compromised And Used For Ad Fraud

A week ago, HBO MAX had its verified Reddit account overrun by a hacker group, which eluded notice for two days while it ran 108 different ad permutations targeting an unknown number of Redditors.

Gaming Wants To Prove It’s Just Like Other Media Channels – While Also Owning How It’s Different

Adapting other channels’ strategies might be what gaming platforms need to do to get advertisers comfortable spending more. Leaning into gaming’s differentiators will come later, after bigger budgets arrive.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters
Comic: Clickbait

Taboola Eyes The Finance Vertical With An Offer To Acquire Ad Network Dianomi

Taboola has made an offer to buy Dianomi, a UK-based ad tech company that connects financial advertisers with premium business and finance publishers.

How The Try Guys Turned Their Love For Liquid I.V. Into A Brand Deal

When a creator already loves the product they’re marketing, it’s easy to work it into their content in ways that feel natural. That’s exactly what the Try Guys did.

Comic: The Showdown

The Court Just Unsealed Judge Brinkema’s Remedies Decision In The Google Ad Tech Antitrust Case. Here’s Your TL;DR

The court has unsealed Judge Leonie Brinkema’s full remedies opinion in US v. Google (ad tech edition). So, what’s in there?