Digital media-buying company MediaMath has acquired Akamai Technologies’ Advertising Decision Solutions (ADS) division, which MediaMath said will let advertisers improve the effectiveness and sophistication of audience analysis across Web, video, mobile and social channels.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
MediaMath will acquire substantially all of the assets associated with Akamai's ADS business, and will integrate the Akamai ADS team into its workforce. About 70 Akamai employees, nearly all of the ADS team, will be joining MediaMath.
As part of the deal, MediaMath will have exclusive rights to use Akamai's “pixel-free” technology for tracking ad impressions within digital advertising and marketing applications. That means advertisers currently on the Akamai platform will not have to integrate other pixels for audience and media performance tracking when using MediaMath’s TerminalOne system.
"MediaMath's exclusive use of Akamai's pixel-free technology will enable clients to scale their business more effectively, and help us make that happen quickly," MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki said in a statement.
LUMA Partners acted as financial advisor to Akamai in the transaction. Akamai acquired Acerno, whose predictive analytics technology based on anonymous consumer shopping data was integrated into the Akamai ADS solution, for $95 million in 2008.
MediaMath's TerminalOne buying platform provides back-office services to access digital advertising channels including Google AdExchange, Yahoo Right Media, Microsoft Ad Exchange, Facebook Exchange, The Rubicon Project, AppNexus, PubMatic and hundreds of premium publishers such as NBC, Fox News and Forbes.
Investors in New York-based MediaMath include Safeguard Scientifics, QED Investors, Catalyst Investors and Observatory Capital.
