StackAdapt Secures $235M Funding for AI-Powered Programmatic Advertising Platform

Programmatic ads platform StackAdapt snags $235M in funding - SiliconANGLE

The programmatic advertising platform startup StackAdapt Inc. today revealed it has closed on a hefty $235 million round of funding, bringing its total amount raised to date to more than $500 million. Teachers' Venture Growth, which is the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, led the round, with participation from Intrepid Growth and other investors. The round underscores the strength of the digital advertising industry and it suggests Toronto-based StackAdapt is becoming an increasingly important player, thanks in part to its focus on "native ads." It was founded in 2014 by Chief Executive Vitaly Pecherskiy, together with Yang Han and Ildar Shar, and has built a "multichannel programmatic advertising platform" that leverages artificial intelligence to enable real-time, data-driven audience targeting. Using its platform, marketers can distribute and promote ads and achieve the best possible impact, while carefully analyzing how successful they are. While StackAdapt supports multiple ad formats, its main focus is on native ads that mimic the look and feel of the website or app they're displayed on. For instance on a news website, native ads will appear at first glance to be just another article, hidden among the genuine stories. Such an approach generates more engagement and higher click-through rates than traditional display or banner ads, though native ads have had mixed success in the past. StackAdapt does support display and banner ads too, along with video adverts and connected TV ads, which are embedded within streaming content. This flexibility enables marketers to use its self-serve platform to distribute more creative, multichannel advertising campaigns, the startup says. The platform provides features including real-time audience targeting, enabling marketers to see what kind of audience segments are currently online on any website or service they're targeting. It also provides access to multiple publishers, tools for project management and creative ad optimization. In addition, StackAdapt's platform gives marketers access to third-party segments via data providers such as Acxiom Inc. and Bombare Inc., enabling them to home in on audiences by targeting specific locations, industries, job functions and more. The platform aims to keep things as simple as possible too, so marketers simply select their target criteria, and it will respond by unearthing the websites that those audiences are currently frequenting in real-time. Pecherskiy said StackAdapt is an invaluable tool for marketers, who are under pressure to drive growth by reaching new customers in a profitable and predictable way. "To help them stay ahead of the curve, we are focused on building the most advanced, intelligent and automated platform to make their success inevitable," Pecherskiy said. The CEO said today's funding comes at a pivotal moment for the company, which has massively expanded its footprint in the programmatic advertising industry. He said it now serves marketers across 19 global markets, and has grown its team to more than 1,300 staff. TVG Senior Managing Director Rick Prostko said he believes StackAdapt's trajectory positions it to become a global leader in the digital advertising industry. "[It has] been able to demonstrate consistent growth and profitability while building the future of advertising and marketing technology," he said. StackAdapt says it will use the money from today's round to increase research and development efforts and expand its global presence.

Advertising Startup StackAdapt Snags Massive $235M Round

Advertising technologies do not interest investors as they once did, however, when you mix in artificial intelligence they take note. StackAdapt raised a $235 million growth round led by Teachers' Venture Growth -- the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan -- with participation from Intrepid Growth Partners and four other unnamed investors. The Toronto-based company is a multichannel programmatic advertising platform that uses AI and automation in its software to enhance capabilities and user experience. "The challenges marketing teams face are vast and evolving rapidly," said co-founder and CEO Vitaly Pecherskiy. "Much of the pressure to drive growth rests on their shoulders as they work to reinvent operations and discover new ways to reach customers effectively, profitably, and predictably. To help them stay ahead of the curve, we are relentlessly focused on building the most advanced, intelligent, and automated platform to make their success inevitable." This new round follows a $300 million investment from Summit Partners in 2022. Founded in 2014, StackAdapt has raised more than $500 million, per the company. Advertising tech companies rarely pique investor interest anymore. The domination of the industry by Big Tech and people's changing tastes for how they digest content have all played a role. StackAdapt's round is the largest for an advertising startup since Madhive, a New York-based advertising software platform, raised $300 million from Goldman Sachs Asset Management in 2023. Advertising startups raised less than $1 billion in venture last year, per Crunchbase data. In 2023, such startups raised only $1.3 billion.

Canada's StackAdapt snaps up $235M for its AI-based programmatic platform | TechCrunch

While the U.S. and Canada duke it out over tariffs between the two countries, a tech company based out of Toronto is announcing a major round of funding led by a homegrown VC. StackAdapt, a programmatic advertising startup, says that it has raised $235 million in equity funding, with Teachers' Venture Growth (TVG) -- the investment arm of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan -- leading the growth round. Intrepid Growth Partners, a firm based between Toronto and London, is also participating, along with four other investors that are not being named. The funding is significant both for its size and its focus. In terms of the size, this is one of the bigger funding rounds for a startup out of Canada to date -- although it's not the biggest. Most recently, Fintech Clio raised $900 million; Cohere raised $500 million, and Tenstorrent raised $700 million, all last year. Funding for Canadian startups is largely reflecting trends that are playing out in other markets. The total number of deals in 2024 was down on the year before, with companies working in the area of artificial intelligence taking an outsized part of what was getting invested. StackAdapt, which describes itself as a company that "harnesses the power of AI", is arguably a part of trend. The company launched in 2014 and had more or less grown as a quietly bootstrapped company. That was until 2022, when it took a $300 million investment from Summit Partners. PitchBook data indicates that at least some of that $300 million was in the form of a secondary investment. From what we understand it was a minority investment, which would put the company's valuation at above $600 million. The company is not disclosing valuation with this current round. The size of this round speaks not only to the company's size today, but also notably how it's financing the next stage of its growth with local backing. Programmatic advertising has become, effectively, the building block of how all digital advertising works these days accounting for upwards of 90% of the market, the reason being that it gives marketers a more effective way of measuring how their ads are working, and to whom those ads are being shown; and it gives publishers a more automated way of bringing in a larger volume of ads against their content. In the case of StackAdapt, the company offers customers across different business verticals -- for example, political campaigns, retailers, B2B, travel, healthcare and financial services -- and its inventory includes native advertising (sponsored content), display, video, connected TV, audio, games and more. Developments like the rise of AI (along with other kinds of automation) have shifted the landscape for programmatic advertising, leading to potentially higher incidents of ad fraud. Other issues that programmatic advertising faces include more difficulty controlling brand safety and data protection, given the amount of data used to power its ad targeting. That's the challenge but also opportunity for companies like StackAdapt. "Following the 2022-2023 lull, companies are shifting their focus toward growth and increasing their investments," said Vitaly Pecherskiy, the CEO who co-founded the company with Yang Han, and Ildar Shar, in a statement to TechCrunch. "That said, growth at all costs is no longer the priority. Companies are looking for solutions to drive their business forward while prioritizing cost-effectiveness through automation and AI. As a result, we are seeing strong demand for our product." StackAdapt, he said has built its AI on "a decade of experience analyzing ad traffic patterns and understanding their evolution," which it uses to help combat ad fraud and bot traffic. "We are proud to support StackAdapt, a leading Canadian technology company, on its trajectory to becoming the global leader in AI-driven, end-to-end advertising," said Rick Prostko, senior managing director of TVG, in a statement. "The company has been able to demonstrate consistent growth and profitability while building the future of advertising and marketing technology. We have been impressed by their exceptional team, visionary leadership, and relentless focus on delivering customer value."