AOL agrees $405m Adap.tv acquisition deal
Aol has revealed the acquisition of global, programmatic video advertising platform Adap.tv, in a deal worth $405m.
The agreement sees Aol offering global programmatic video technology for stack publishers and advertisers across all screens as well as wide adoption by the largest global advertisers and publishers, including 83 of the Ad Age 100 and 70 of the comScore 100.
The combination of AOL and Adap.tv gives AOL an end-to-end solution and video stack for publishers and advertisers – from premium original production, to content aggregation and syndication platforms, robust CMS technology, and now a programmatic video platform.
“The Adap.tv founders and team are on a mission to make advertising as easy as e-commerce and the two companies together will aggressively pursue that vision. Two trends are prevalent in the video space right now – the movement from linear television to online video and the shift from manual transactions to programmatic media buying. Adap.tv is positioned squarely in front of the huge opportunity these trends are presenting,” commented Tim Armstrong, chairman and chief executive officer of AOL.
AOL has already invested heavily in the digital video space by focusing exclusively on premium content and premium publishers, and in 2012, Adap.tv supported more than 26,000 global ad campaigns, which ran on approximately 9,500 websites and was used by many top brand advertisers.
Adap.tv CEO Amir Ashkenzai, added: “At Adap.tv, we are focused on building the most important business within the most important category in digital advertising. We believe that most TV advertising will soon be traded programmatically on platforms like ours. The combination of AOL and Adap.tv accelerates our vision of efficient and effective TV and video advertising.”
Adap.tv will operate independently as part of AOL’s video organisation, led by Ran Harnevo, SVP, video, and will be included as part of the overall solution offered by AOL Networks to its publisher and advertiser partners. The purchase price totals $405m in aggregate, comprised of approximately $322m in cash consideration, and approximately $83m in AOL common stock.