Chris and Tim Vanderhook, COO and CEO Viant.
lively
Viant Technology, the latest advertising technology company to go public, has seen shares rise more than 90 percent after the company launched its initial public offering on Wednesday.
Viant operates an on-demand advertising platform, or DSP, called Adelphic. It was priced at $ 25 per share, but opened at $ 44 and closed the day at $ 47.72. The company debuted on the Nasdaq under the symbol “DSP”.
It is the latest public participant in a hot advertising technology market. The company’s IPO comes about two weeks after digital advertising company Taboola said it intends to go public through a merger with ION Acquisition Corp, a special procurement corporation (SPAC). In December, the advertising platform PubMatic also launched its IPO. And Kubient, another player, went public in August last year.
A recent note from MKM Partners said that ad-tech IPOs had a mixed experience 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 launch the Xumo connected TV platform, which was acquired by Comcast last year.
Time Inc. bought a 60% stake in Viant in 2016, which Meredith acquired through its own acquisition of Time in 2018. The founders of Viant took control of the company in 2019.
The company, which has about 300 employees, competes with players such as 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, streaming audio and digital panels, the company said in its S-1 filing before IPO.
Viant CEO Chris Vanderhook said the company had an “extraordinary” year in 2019, before being hit by a wider slowdown in Covid-related ads last year.
“I would say that the opportunity in front of us in the market is this programmatic opportunity,” he told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s growing very fast, by over 20% a year. However, the total advertising market in the US today is about $ 200 billion. Only about 40% of it is bought programmatically or through software.”
Viant says that its DSP is well positioned as a “people-based” platform, compared to a cookie-based one, which uses personal data stored in your web browser. Google intends to discontinue support for third-party cookies in the Chrome browser by next year. Viant, on the other hand, says he uses “real-world identifiers” to identify customers. For example, the company says it links information such as email address, name, address, and phone number to digital identifiers, such as a mobile advertising ID or location. This helps Viant target digital ads to the right audience.
CEO Tim Vanderhook added that while some DSPs focus on purchasing, the company has integrated data and measurement capabilities into its software, making it “very sticky” with customers.
MKM’s partners wrote in a recent note that they consider the company’s focus on “people-based marketing” and the winds of programmatic advertising and connected TV to be “clear positives of sustainable investment.”
But they also pointed out some risks, saying it had a “crowded 2020”, with significant declines in annualized revenues and “somewhat slow recovery”. They also noted the fragmented competition in the space of advertising technology from companies such as The Trade Desk and Google.
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, CNBC’s parent company.
Nominations are open for 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50, a list of private start-ups that use cutting-edge technology to become the next generation of large public companies. send until Friday, February 12, at 15:00 EST.