SPAC

The market is not being kind to digital media companies. The nearly 40% drop in BuzzFeed’s stock price on Monday and the decline of its valuation from $1.5 billion when it went public in December to roughly $300 million now is no doubt causing other digital-native publishers to rethink their IPO plans. But any doom and gloom about the long-term viability of digital publishers in public markets is likely overblown.

Special purpose acquisition companies have fallen out of favor. But demand-side platform AdTheorent, which went public via SPAC late last year, has no regrets about the route it took to IPO.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Flix It Public investor Bill Ackman scooped 3.1 million Netflix shares, a 0.68% stake in the company. The bulk buy by Pershing Square, Ackman’s fund, was inspired by Netflix’s recent stock plunge, reports The Wall Street Journal. Netflix missed […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Cookie Cutters A coalition of large German advertisers and Axel Springer, the biggest German publisher, are petitioning the EU legislature to stop Google from removing third-party cookies in Chrome, the Financial Times reports.  Chrome already delayed cookie deprecation from Q2 this year to the […]

“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 Oz Etzioni, CEO at Clinch. 2021 is shaping up to be a breakthrough year for advertising technology. After several fallow years for ad tech companies and a necessary period of […]

Are you tired of SPACs already? Too bad! There are more SPACs. Another market entrant is the performance advertising company System1, which will list on the Nasdaq later this year, likely by November, after completing a merger with one such “special purpose acquisition company,” said CEO and co-founder Michael Blend. System1’s SPAC arrangement isn’t analogous […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC’s All Folks Vice Media officially nixed plans to go public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), at least for now, The Information reports. However, Vice did raise an additional $85 million from existing investors. A portion of those funds are earmarked for […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The SPAC Attack Online publishers are popular takeover targets for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which promise a route to IPO without the typical pre-IPO roadshow – the well-known brand merges with an already-public shell company. First-party data and ad tech companies have boomed […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Publisher Action  Forbes is jumping on the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) bandwagon as a route to go public, CNBC reports. The business publisher announced plans to IPO at a $630 million value. The cash infusion will help Forbes’s “digital transformation,” and CEO Mike […]

The field of public ad tech and digital media companies is growing large – both in number of companies and their market value. To help us untangle all of the M&A, IPOs and SPACs, Progress Partners Chief Operating Officer Domenic Venuto explains how investors approach the digital media and advertising sector. One important tell for […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. BuzzKill As he prepares to take his company public via SPAC, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti has made concessions to irate shareholder NBCUniversal that could put him in the hot seat, according to The Wall Street Journal. To summarize: NBCU stands to lose money in […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…  

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Some SPAC BDG Media Inc., which owns publications such as Bustle, Elite Daily, NYLON and Input, is set to acquire digital media company Some Spider Studios for $150 million, The Wall Street Journal reports. The all-stock purchase comes ahead of BDG’s planned public offering […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. IPOs Popping The ad tech party is raging after a slew of companies went public in recent weeks. AcuityAds, Taboola and Integral Ad Science went public in June. Not to be outdone, content recommendation company Outbrain announced plans to IPO a day before rival […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Taboola Roll Call Taboola began trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday. It raised more than $500 million with the IPO, and reported a net income of $18 million on total revenue of $303 million in Q1, CNBC reports. “I think of Taboola as a […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC Attack Mobile gaming monetization and ad tech provider IronSource began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), with the goal of raising $2 billion in capital at an $11 billion valuation. The IPO comes […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Buzz Words Talk about a potential media juggernaut. BuzzFeed announced Thursday that it has acquired Complex Networks and went public via a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC). Read the release. BuzzFeed’s merger with Complex, a style, culture and music publisher, is part of a […]

Ad server Innovid is going public via a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC), a move aimed at driving the company’s plans for global expansion. Following approval by the Securities and Exchange Commision, the merger with ION Acquisition Corp. 2 would put Innovid’s total value at $1.3 billion. Plus, it allows Innovid to raise $403 million. […]

Seven ad tech companies made transactions valued at over $1 billion in the first quarter of 2021 – double the amount that’s happened in the past few years combined. “We’ve got a perfect storm here of different forces lining up, which created such a strong quarter,” said Conor McKenna, LUMA Partners director. The ad tech […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Vice Is In For A SPAC-ING Is there another SPAC-driven media merger on the horizon? According to The Information, Vice Media is in “advanced talks” to go public by merging with 7GC & Co Holdings. Vice had apparently met with other SPACs in the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. We’ll take that as a ‘yes’ The age of email-based identifiers is nigh. But are these cookie replacements actually as transparent about consent as promised? Digiday’s Kate Kaye says mebbe not. “Because many identity technologies, including Unified ID 2.0, use email addresses and other […]

It’s mobile mania. There were three big pieces of mobile news before lunch on Monday – evidence that the mobile app market is white hot and only getting hotter. Content discovery provider Digital Turbine is acquiring app monetization company Fyber for $600 million in cash and stock – less than a month after spending $400 million to […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Breaking The Rules Some big tech companies in China are apparently taking that old adage “rules are meant to be broken” to heart. According to the Financial Times, ByteDance and Tencent are testing a tool to bypass Apple’s new privacy rules and continue tracking […]

“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 Patrick O’Leary, CEO at Boostr. If last year was any indication, 2021 is going to be the year of the SPAC for digital publishers. SPACs – or Special Purpose […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC Bandwagon Content recommendation engine Taboola became the latest tech company to exist via SPAC when it announced plans to go public on Monday by merging with special purpose acquisition company ION Acquisition Corp, per Business Insider. The deal, which will value Taboola at […]

Here’s 2020 in a nutshell from the investment banker’s point of view: “Turmoil caused acceleration and unexpected change, and it was a breeding ground for opportunity,” says Conor McKenna, a VP at LUMA Partners. After stalling to near zero during the first three months of the pandemic, conversations and negotiations started to pick up again […]