After closing its $1.17 billion acquisition of SpotX is April, Magnite is jumping back into M&A with a $31 million purchase agreement for ad-tech firm SpringServe.
SpringServe is an ad serving platform for connected TV that handles inventory routing, customized ad experiences and podding logic for publishers. Magnite said the acquisition will result in a technical integration between ad serving and programmatic capabilities that can potentially reduce complexity, improve inventory management between multiple parties, enhance functionality and possibly reduce costs.
“The addition of SpringServe will better position Magnite to meet the needs of leading CTV publishers, no matter where they are in the evolution of their sales channel strategy,” said Michael Barrett, president and CEO at Magnite, in a statement. “If CTV publishers want to be fully programmatic, they can leverage our CTV SSP, and if they’re in the early stages of programmatic, the SpringServe ad server will allow them to go at their own pace and customize their prioritization of direct-sold and programmatic demand. Additionally, our hybrid solution enables programmatic demand to compete with the publisher’s direct-sold demand and optimize yield automatically.”
RELATED: Magnite buys SpotX for $1.17B
Last year SpotX made a minority investment in SpringServe in conjunction with a strategic partnership and now Magnite has acquired the company pursuant to an option agreement within its SpotX deal. SpringServe, which was founded in 2015, counts Vizio, Pluto TV, Univision and Tastemade as clients.
Magnite, through its SpotX and now SpringServe acquisitions, has been working to create an alternative to the connected TV advertising market’s largest players.
“Sellers have been looking for a scaled independent alternative to the giant companies who dominate the CTV marketplace,” said Barrett.
However, Beachfront's CEO Chris Maccaro said that this latest deal still doesn’t do much to fix market fragmentation for addressable advertising.
"Consolidation in adtech continues to accelerate, with this acquisition being driven by the importance of having purpose-built tech for CTV. There is still a void in the market, however, as it pertains to enabling addressability and interoperability across both traditional TV and CTV, which is the biggest challenge facing premium TV buyers and sellers,” he said.