Cadent, an advanced TV specialist, has announced it will acquire AdTheorent, a machine learning-driven programmatic advertising company, for around $324 million. The deal will see the TV advertising firm purchase all outstanding shares of AdTheorent Holding Company for a cash consideration of $3.21 per share.
The combined entity will provide omnichannel audience activation platforms for buyers and sellers of advertising, according to the companies, with a focus on providing performance advertising solutions that cater to both digital and traditional TV markets.
“Together, Cadent and AdTheorent will enable our customers to drive performance across all strategic audiences, no matter where they consume media or where they are in the sales funnel,” said Cadent CEO Nick Troiano. “We will connect the worlds of programmatic and TV, providing solutions across our partner ecosystem that will drive next-generation omnichannel reach and performance results.”
The merger has been approved by the AdTheorent Board of Directors and is expected to close in approximately 90 days, subject to customary closing conditions, completion of regulatory review and AdTheorent shareholder approval.
Mapping the cookieless landscape
The deal comes ahead of the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome, using the companies’ combined cookieless solutions to provide targeting capabilities in digital environments. The firms said the tie-up brings together AdTheorent’s ID-independent algorithmic audience solutions with Cadent’s cookieless household identity graph.
And with TV audiences pivoting to streaming services, Cadent aims to use AdTheorent’s machine learning capabilities to identify CTV audiences in an advertising environment that has become highly fragmented by those streaming platforms and devices.
AdTheorent provides predictive targeting, geolocation and cross-environment mapping services, enabling advertisers to identify potential consumers and optimise creative to those viewers.
“AdTheorent’s customer-focused culture, award-winning technology and commitment to innovation has helped our team build a strong brand that is a recognised leader in performance-first programmatic advertising,” saidAdTheorent CEO James Lawson. “In Cadent, we’ve found a partner with a shared commitment to delivering measurable results for customers, and a complementary vision for the future of omnichannel advertising. In an increasingly competitive and evolving adtech sector, we are excited to bring together our teams, technology, and solutions to drive continued value to our customers and our employees.”
Consolidating CTV
Cadent has been building out its audience and identity capabilities over the past few years, aiming to provide a single platform for multiple forms of data-driven TV advertising. In 2020 the company acquired 4INFO, an identity and media solutions business, integrating the company’s data activation capabilities into its TV planning services.
The New York-based firm was founded in 2005, using IP-enabled set-top boxes to target ads to individual households. Cadent launched its national platform for addressable TV advertising in 2018, and has since expanded to cover linear, CTV and digital advertising. The company also works with European telco Liberty Global to run addressable ads on linear broadcasts and on-demand content across Europe.
After a five-year search for a buyer, Cadent was acquired by private equity firm Novacap in August 2023 for an estimated $600 million. The company said the investment would enable further strategic acquisitions, such as the AdTheorent takeover, with Novacap helping to fund the transaction.
“Novacap accelerates growth companies through strategic investments,” said Samuel Nasso, Partner at Novacap, and Chairman of the Board of Cadent. “We’re pleased to empower the Cadent and AdTheorent teams to further their vision of building a leading omnichannel audience platform, by providing the foundational resources necessary to complete a transaction of this scale.”
