Chris and Tim Vanderhook, COO and CEO of Viant.
Viant
Viant Technology, the latest advertising technology company to go public, saw shares rise more than 90% after the company launched its initial public offering on Wednesday.
Viant operates a demand-side advertising platform, or DSP, called Adelphic. It was quoted at $ 25 per share, but opened at $ 44 and ended the day at $ 47.72. The company debuted on Nasdaq under the symbol “DSP”.
It is the latest public player in a booming advertising technology market. The company’s IPO comes about two weeks after digital advertising company Taboola said it planned to go public through a merger with ION Acquisition Corp, a special acquisition company (SPAC). In December, the advertising platform on the sales side PubMatic also launched its IPO. And Kubient, another player, went public in August last year.
A recent note from MKM Partners said that advertising technology IPOs have a mixed history in public markets, but that there has been a resurgence lately with PubMatic and Magnite receiving a “warm welcome” from investors.
Viant was launched by brothers Tim, Chris and Russ Vanderhook in 1999. The company acquired the social networking company MySpace in 2011. Later that year, it helped start the connected TV platform Xumo, which was acquired by Comcast last year. past.
Time Inc. purchased a 60% stake in Viant in 2016, which Meredith acquired through its own acquisition of Time in 2018. Viant’s founders took back control of the company in 2019.
The company, which has about 300 employees, competes with companies like The Trade Desk and part of Google’s advertising technology business. The software is used by marketers and their advertising agencies to centralize the purchase, planning and measurement of advertising on channels such as desktop, mobile, connected TV, audio streaming and digital billboards, the company said in its order S- 1 before the IPO.
Viant COO Chris Vanderhook said the company had a “tremendous” year in 2019 before being hit by the broader slowdown in Covid-related ads last year.
“I would say that the opportunity we have before us in the market is this programmatic opportunity,” he told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s growing very fast, more than 20% a year. However, the total ad market in the United States today is about $ 200 billion. Only about 40% of that is purchased programmatically or through software.”
Viant says its DSP is well positioned as a “people-based” platform, rather than one based on cookies, which use personal data stored in your browser. Google plans to discontinue its support for third-party cookies on its Chrome browser next year. Viant, instead, says it uses “real-world identifiers” to identify customers. For example, the company says it links information such as email, name, address and phone number to digital identifiers, such as mobile ad ID or location. This helps Viant target digital ads to the right audience.
CEO Tim Vanderhook added that while some DSPs focus directly on purchasing, the company has integrated data and measurement capabilities into its software, making it “really attractive” to customers.
MKM Partners wrote in its recent note that it believes the company’s focus on “people-based marketing” and the impulses in program advertising and connected TV are “clearly positive for sustainable investment”.
But they also pointed out some risks, saying it had an “irregular 2020”, with significant declines in annualized revenue and “a somewhat slow recovery”. They also saw fragmented competition in the ad technology space from companies like The Trade Desk and Google.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
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