LinkedIn is buying Drawbridge. The acquisition was announced quietly on Tuesday via a mere mention buried in a blog post, and the deal price was undisclosed. The deal is expected to close by the end of June. Drawbridge CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan and CTO Devin Guan are coming aboard, although LinkedIn declined to share which other […]
TransUnion is busily expanding its digital marketing product portfolio. On Wednesday, the credit bureau and consumer data provider acquired marketing tech platform TruSignal. The deal – TransUnion declined to share terms – arrives less than a year after the company hired seasoned ad executive and former MediaLink managing director, Matt Spiegel, as EVP of digital marketing solutions […]
McDonald’s is buying an Israeli startup called Dynamic Yield that provides personalization software to brands and publishers – but this acquisition is about a lot more than tailoring menus based on the weather or serving up customized content. The deal, announced late Monday, is the first major acquisition McDonald’s has made in around 20 years, and […]
Taptica will acquire RhythmOne for $176 million in an all-stock deal, the companies said Monday. The mobile ad tech firm also gets a matryoshka doll of assets along with RhythmOne, including assets from the latter’s previous acquisitions of YuMe, Burst Media and parts of RadiumOne. Taptica characterized the deal as a bid for connected televison […]
Some ad tech companies are getting out of the managed media business – and others are jumping in with both feet. On Monday, mobile analytics company UberMedia sold its managed media business to location data platform Gimbal, marking the latter’s second acquisition of a media services unit in less than a year. Gimbal acquired Drawbridge’s managed […]
The in-app header bidding space is gathering momentum – but not fast enough for AppLovin. The mobile ad network has acquired MAX, a startup that came out of beta just over four months ago with a solution that helps app publishers get a fair shake on the open exchange, the company announced Wednesday. “There are […]
Disney is about to get its own happily ever after with Hulu. Comcast has dropped out of its bidding war for most of Fox’s assets, conceding it to Disney. Disney and Fox shareholders are expected to approve the deal on July 27, USA Today reported. Disney will also gain access to Fox’s Star India network […]
Salesforce has signed an agreement to acquire Datorama, a marketing tech company whose platform connects and consolidates data from different sources, the companies said Monday. The deal is anticipated to close Q3. Terms were not disclosed, though the publication CTech said the offer is for $800 million. “With one unified view of data and insights, […]
The rumors were true. AT&T said Monday it will acquire AppNexus for its advertising and analytics unit, which is headed up by former GroupM chief (and ex-AppNexus board member) Brian Lesser. The acquisition is expected to close in Q3. Read the release. Terms were not disclosed, though The Wall Street Journal pegged the price tag […]
Location marketing platform Verve is angling for a piece of the growing programmatic mobile video pie with the acquisition of in-app video ad vendor Receptiv (formerly MediaBrix). The deal, announced Wednesday, opens up a rich new seam of inventory for Verve, said CEO Tom Kenney, who declined to share terms other than to say the […]
Drawbridge, one of the last major cross-device indies, is selling its US media business to location data platform Gimbal, shutting down its self-serve ad platform and getting out of the advertising biz, AdExchanger has learned. Drawbridge’s media team and the company’s entire book of managed business is transferring to Gimbal. Both companies declined to share […]
Ericsson remains keen on ad tech. On Wednesday, the Swedish networking and telecom company announced its acquisition of Placecast, a combo data management and demand-side platform (DSP) for location data. Placecast is now part of Emodo, Ericsson’s programmatic mobile ad platform that helps telcos monetize their subscriber data. Emodo is housed within a newly created […]
It looks like China is not the ultimate exit for ad tech. Late Tuesday evening, app marketing platform AppLovin said that company will no longer be acquired by a Chinese private equity firm for $1.42 billion as planned. The deal, now scrapped, was first announced in September 2016. The duo will still do a deal, […]
DoubleVerify said Wednesday that private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has acquired a majority stake in the company. AdExchanger reported in July that DoubleVerify was exploring a sale that would have valued the company in the $350 million range. The exact size of the Providence stake was not disclosed in the deal announcement, but The […]
Sizmek said Tuesday it intends to buy ad tech company Rocket Fuel for $2.60 per share in cash, valuing Rocket Fuel at $145 million. That’s a long way from where Rocket Fuel was valued when it IPOed in 2013 – going public at $29 per share at a roughly $1 billion value. Read the release. […]
DoubleVerify is looking for a home. AdExchanger has learned that the independent verification company recently hired a banker from tech-focused investment firm Pacific Crest Securities. Final bids were due Tuesday, and sources tell AdExchanger the deal price could be somewhere in the $350 million range – a lofty bid, though considerably less than the reported […]
Bots are to web traffic what broken turnstiles are to amusement parks – they make it impossible to get an accurate read on how many people are coming through the door, and that messes with optimization. But at least in the case of a physical location, the visitors are human. On Thursday, bot detection company Distil […]
All telcos acquire ad tech to drive revenue, but not all telcos think alike on how to make that happen. Operators divide into four primary schools of thought when it comes to activating their ad tech assets: open ecosystem, closed ecosystem, internal promotion and content distribution. Singaporean SingTel, for example, is willing to partner with […]
Indie programmatic agency Anagram is indie no more. On Thursday, programmatic ad firm Digilant acqui-hired the five-person team behind Anagram in a bid to beef up its custom programmatic ad solutions. “Providing custom solutions is not just about technology,” said Digilant global CEO Alan Osetek. “Technology is only as good as the people who use […]
Another independent demand-side platform (DSP) has found its big enterprise home. Amobee, a digital marketing firm owned by Singaporean telco Singtel, has agreed to buy Turn at a $310 million value. Read the release. Stakeholders expect the acquisition to close within 45 days. Amobee, known for its mobile capabilities, had worked with numerous buying platforms before, said […]
Ghostery has decided not to have its cake and eat it too. On Wednesday, the company announced that it’s been acquired in an all-cash deal by Cliqz, a German privacy-focused browser that plans to use the ad-tracker tool to help expand its user base. The companies did not disclose a deal price. Hubert Burda Media, […]
The Chinese ad tech acquisition drumbeat continues. On Wednesday, Shanghai-based private equity firm Innotech bought data aggregator and discrepancy management company Ad-Juster. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but industry sources told AdExchanger the sale was well within the eight-figure range. Even at the potential high end, that doesn’t touch the astonishing deal prices […]
Another unicorn rides off into the eastern sunset. App marketing company AppLovin has agreed to be acquired by a Chinese private equity firm for $1.42 billion. “AppLovin” could also be used to describe the scene in China right now, where consortia of institutional investors have mobile fever. This acquisition, which was confirmed on Monday after […]
Glispa keeps scooping up companies. On Tuesday, the Berlin-based mobile ad platform plunked down an undisclosed sum to buy native mobile ad exchange Avocarrot, its third acquisition in less than two years. Glispa bought MoneyTap, a Russian mobile mediation platform, in March, followed by the acquisition of Brazilian mobile performance agency Mobils a couple of […]
Private equity firm Vector Capital has agreed to acquire ad tech company Sizmek. “Vector will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Sizmek common stock for $3.90 per share in an all-cash tender offer,” according to a release, which values the company at $122 million. Notably, Sizmek’s market cap, just prior to the acquisition announcement, […]
Despite similar origins as Web 1.0 content portals, Yahoo’s inability to shake its roots and AOL’s decisive transformation into an ad tech company sent the two down starkly different paths, even as they both landed beneath Verizon’s big red checkmark: the communications giant purchased AOL for $4.4 billion last May and revealed its intention to […]
With its acquisition of Yahoo on Monday, Verizon – and therefore AOL – is sinking its hooks into a treasure chest of cross-device data. “It’s very large and very deterministic,” said 360i president Jared Belsky. Cross-device connectivity was ostensibly one of the big motivators behind Verizon’s acquisition of AOL in May 2015, and now the same […]
Deals fall through all the time. But the failed acquisition of Opera’s ad business could be a signal that China’s western buying spree is liable to hit a few regulatory snags. In February, a consortium of Chinese companies, which comprises mobile game maker Kunlun and security software provider Qihoo, announced its intention to buy up all of […]
Nielsen is looking to score more sports marketing dollars with its acquisition of Repucom, a sports research firm founded in Australia and now based out of the US. Nielsen, which closed the deal on Tuesday, did not disclose the price tag, though German sports industry trade pub Sponsors reported it to be more than $100 […]
Impact Radius is bringing fraud detection in-house with the acquisition of Forensiq. The deal, announced Tuesday, helps create what Impact Radius CEO Per Pettersen calls “a system of record with built-in fraud detection.” Forensiq and Impact Radius are keeping the terms of the transaction secret other than to note it was a mixture of cash […]
