It may be cold outside, but ad tech is heating up.
On Tuesday, Canada-based demand-side platform StackAdapt announced $235 million in equity funding led by Teachers’ Venture Growth, the investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Intrepid Growth Partners and four other investors also contributed to the funding.
This latest funding round follows a $300 million investment from Summit Partners in 2022 and brings StackAdapt’s total funding to $535 million.
StackAdapt, which launched in 2014, has spent much of the past 10 years building its own ad tech stack and “flying under the radar,” said CEO and Co-Founder Vitaly Pecherskiy told AdExchanger. Compared to other major DSPs, “we feel like we’re small potatoes” in terms of head count, he said.
But with this latest influx of cash, he said, StackAdapt plans to invest in hiring, R&D and expanding both its tech stack and global presence.
Calling all media buyers – and investors
StackAdapt currently conducts most of its business in North America, but is now looking to grow in other markets, including Europe, Latin America and Asia. “We’re just starting to scratch the surface” beyond North America, Pecherskiy said.
With a bigger team and a broader global presence, StackAdapt hopes to attract more attention from advertisers and media buyers as well as from more investors with experience scaling a business until it becomes a household name, Pecherskiy said. Additional investor backing could also help StackAdapt “earn more credibility with companies that have never heard of us before,” he added.
But acquisitions likely aren’t in the cards. Although StackAdapt isn’t opposed to potential M&A in the future, it prefers to build its own technology.
All eyes on AI
For example, StackAdapt is incorporating more AI and automation capabilities into its tech stack, including to improve the user interface and functions of its self-serve dashboard. Many media buyers use StackAdapt on a self-serve basis, Pecherskiy said.
“Generative AI opens up a whole new set of capabilities [that can] create value for customers,” he said.
Pecherskiy added that “a lot of the work we’re doing around AI [involves] building a stronger foundation for first-party data integrations,” in addition to automating both creative and back-end operations.
Within the StackAdapt platform, for example, buyers can use AI to generate ad headlines and copy based on specific creative or instructions. AI can also create shortcuts to expedite the execution of certain tasks that take longer for a human to complete, Pecherskiy said, such as sourcing or analyzing data.
Going forward, there’s plenty of potential for more sophisticated applications of AI to help marketers plan ad campaigns, he said.
Buyers, for example, would find value in an AI-based tool that can give detailed answers to specific questions about audience planning or campaign execution. AI-based chatbots – also known as AI agents – are gaining traction among ad tech and software companies.
Pecherskiy also alluded to a new suite of AI-based ad products that StackAdapt plans to unveil in May, although it’s still too early to share specifics.
