ad tech M&A

Eyewear company Blacksheep claims that Google replaced its site with a lookalike domain that led to an error page, causing the brand to lose its position in organic search.

The Tech Revolution Will Be Televised  Every business considers itself a tech company these days. Remember Allbirds sneakers pivoting to AI? In the entertainment industry, the line between tech and media is growing especially murky. Legacy entertainment studios own streaming platforms, and tech companies produce their own films and shows.  Unfortunately, a showdown between Hollywood […]

Walmart will buy Vibe.co, a self-serve video ad platform, in hopes of attracting more small and medium-sized advertisers to connected TV.

Since Connatix and JW Player first announced their merger in October, JWP Connatix – a temporary name for the newly joined companies – says things are going well at the six-month mark.

This year, expect ad tech consolidation to center on the biggest growth opportunities in advertising: retail media, connected TV and addressing the gaps in measurement.

M&A started off with a bang in 2025. T-Mobile bought Vistar Media, and The Trade Desk bought Sincera. With a special guest from LUMA Partners, Conor McKenna, we explore the rationale for these ad tech acquisitions.

On Monday, T-Mobile announced plans to acquire Vistar Media, an ad platform that specializes in digital out-of-home for roughly $600 million in cash.

The rumors are true: Outbrain will acquire Teads, the SSP and video monetization company owned by European telco Altice. The acquisition ends advanced talks, first reported in July, between the two companies.

Social media companies don’t want to be called “social media” anymore. Plus: Claritas has hired Jefferies as a banker and is pursuing a sale.

If the nonstop news coming out of Cannes Lions in France this week is making your head spin, this week’s newsletter dispatch will catch you up on how CTV is factoring into this year’s festival.

Equativ (formerly known as Smart AdServer) announced its acquisition of Sharethrough, an SSP with a specialty in native advertising.

Contextual ad platform Seedtag acquires Beachfront, a supply-side platform that specializes in TV and video.

Advanced TV advertising company Cadent announced plans to drop $324 million to acquire the performance marketing company AdTheorent.

Netflix is licensing yet more content from the coffers of cable TV, while G/O Media is selling its portfolio for parts.

Infillion is finally unveiling its intentions for MediaMath after buying the company out of bankruptcy during an auction last month.

On Wednesday, iSpot acquired 605, a TV measurement and attribution company that brings iSpot’s US household footprint to 82.7 million.

Ad exchanges used to be a regular feature of the ad tech landscape. Now? You can hardly find a stand-alone ad exchange because other ad tech players (including SSPs) and ad servers rolled all the exchanges into their service suites. And consolidation is a system in which the best company doesn’t always win, writes Jayson Dubin, CEO of Playwire. Publishers can protect themselves in the midst of disruption by taking a few easy steps.

Ad verification and measurement provider DoubleVerify is set to acquire Berlin-based ad tech company Meetrics, a deal that will help fuel the newly minted public company’s global expansion. The all-cash purchase is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021. DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski declined to disclose the sale price. Meetrics was founded in […]

Mediaocean’s acquisition of ad server Flashtalking for $500 million in cash and stock shows the company is running hard after CTV, CEO Bill Wise tells AdExchanger. “CTV is the fastest growing part of both the Flashtalking and Mediaocean businesses so the solutions for personalized creative, verification, and analytics will bring tremendous synergy,” Wise said, speaking […]

The sun hasn’t been shining on Wall Street this week as tech stocks dipped precipitously – The Trade Desk among them. Despite turning in decent earnings, TTD’s stock dove by more than 25%, making it one of the most affected of the ad tech bunch. It was a surprising development after more than a year […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Terence Kawaja, CEO, LUMA Partners. CAVEAT: LUMA Partners is a leading M&A advisor to the ad tech sector. Hammer >>> Nail. The intersection of media, marketing and technology has always […]

Mediaocean, the de facto software for most US TV advertising, has agreed to acquire the ad tech and analytics startup 4C on Monday for $150 million. 4C raised $31 million in two rounds, most recently in 2016 at a valuation of between $50 million and $100 million. Mediaocean CEO Bill Wise told AdExchanger the two […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Jay MacDonald, CEO and managing partner at Digital Capital Advisors. Everyone take a deep breath – and exhale. Entrepreneurs, investors and board members are now synthesizing the potential ramifications of […]

In recent years, enterprise giants like Salesforce, Oracle, IBM and Adobe monopolized M&A activity as each marketing cloud raced to buy their way into ad tech. That tide has turned. These days, strategic acquisitions are more about expanding access to content, audiences and new means of distribution. Just look to media company team-ups like Disney-21st […]

Oppenheimer & Co. managing director and senior analyst Jason Helfstein will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming PROGRAMMATIC I/O New York conference on Oct. 25-26 in a presentation titled “Programmatic Wall Street.” Wall Street is changing how it looks at ad tech. The Trade Desk went public, and its consistent overperformance has made it the darling of investors who had sworn […]

Despite predictions that winter is coming to ad tech, deal activity for the ad tech, mar tech and digital media sectors was tentatively healthy in 2016, according to reports released this week by investment banks LUMA Partners, JEGI and Petsky Prunier. Deal activity rose to the $100-to-$200 billion range. JEGI reported deal activity at roughly […]

Following two dozen acquisitions in the ad tech world over the past couple years, RBC Capital Markets analyst Rohit Kulkarni predicts ad tech consolidation to continue the pace in 2016. But the portion of the advertising market most of these companies are fighting over represents just 20-25% of the total market. “There is an overarching […]