Mediaocean, an omnichannel ad tech company, is to acquire ad management platform Flashtalking for a fee reported to be around $500 million.
It was announced today that Mediaocean, which is majority-owned by Vista Equity Partners, has entered into a formal agreement to acquire Flashtalking. The merged company will handle over $200 billion in annualised media spend and over one trillion monthly ad impressions.
The acquisition builds on an existing partnership that the two companies launched in 2018 to incorporate Flashtalking’s ad serving data into the media buying workflow.
The acquisition will be Mediaocean’s eleventh since it was bought by Vista in 2015. The company, whose software is well established in the US TV advertising space, has been buying up complimentary businesses as it adjusts to a changing ecosystem.
The most recent of these was 4C, an ad tech and analytics start-up which Mediaocean bought last year for $150 million. The company said at the time that the move signalled investment in the growing areas of CTV and closed ecosystems.
Mediaocean says the Flastalking buyout represents further investment in these areas. But Flashtalking is Mediaocean’s biggest acquisition so far, with the business reported to generate between $100 million and $150 million in revenue.
“Flashtalking is the source of truth for digital and CTV ads and Mediaocean is the system of record for all media. Combined, we will deliver comprehensive and future-forward solutions for omnichannel advertising,” said Bill Wise, CEO of Mediaocean. “Most importantly, our platform is not compromised by media ownership so we can focus solely on driving outcomes for marketers and their agency partners.”
John Nardone, CEO at Flashtalking, said, “Over the years, we’ve built the most trusted, independent platform for driving advertising relevance and improving campaign performance. Together, our teams and complementary tech will help brands succeed in a future dominated by converged media and anchored on cookieless identity resolution.”
