Madhive – a leading advertising software platform engineered for modern TV advertising – announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with the Private Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management for a $300 million investment in the company.
Goldman Sachs’ significant equity investment comes as Madhive’s connected TV (CTV) ad software platform is leading the TV industry’s expansion from linear TV advertising into streaming, primarily through its large local broadcaster clients including FOX, Scripps, Hearst, and TEGNA, among others. And the partnership with Goldman Sachs will enable Madhive to further accelerate the growth and adoption of its CTV platform, most notably within the local advertising market, and expand new channels such as national / direct-to-consumer advertisers and retail media networks, who are looking to modernize and scale their CTV offerings.
Madhive launched in 2016 with the original mission of transforming the $360 billion digital TV advertising industry. And Co-founders, Adam Helfgott and Tom Bollich, serial entrepreneurs from outside the ad-tech space, saw a more efficient and streamlined way to build for the nascent CTV industry across both the supply and demand side.
Upon closing of the transaction, Adam Helfgott will transition to Strategic Advisor and Chairman of the Board and Spencer Potts will transition to CEO of Madhive.
Madhive’s full-stack programmatic platform powers hundreds of millions of dollars in media across more than 20,000 daily campaigns. And the self-service platform is completely configurable and has tools for planning, targeting, activating, and measuring programmatic TV campaigns.
As one of the world’s largest alternative investment managers with more than $445 billion of assets, Goldman Sachs has developed an extensive investment track record across the marketing and advertising technology space with select recent investments including iSpot.tv, HUMAN, GumGum and Innovid, among others. And the Private Equity business within Goldman Sachs has invested over $90 billion of equity capital in over 900 companies globally since its inception in 1986.
Madhive is based in New York and has approximately 200 employees with headcount expected to increase by 20% in 2023, at a time when many tech companies are downsizing. Most recently, Madhive hired the former Google and Pinterest executive Jon Kaplan as Chief Revenue Officer. Kaplan has extensive expertise in building and scaling large enterprises in the digital ad and technology categories. This year, Madhive also hired the former Roku and Hulu executive, Kristin Wnuk, as SVP of Sales and the former Affirm and Capital One Software executive, Darien Ford, as Chief Technology Officer.
KEY QUOTES:
“Since inception, Madhive has been on a mission to modernize and simplify the ad-tech ecosystem. We purpose-built the Madhive platform in anticipation of the growth of streaming TV — investing in engineering, technology, and infrastructure. Our growth stems from collaborating with partners to solve a host of their unique requirements. Through our fully end-to-end tech stack for TV advertising, media sellers and advertisers have the flexibility and tools to reach streaming audiences efficiently at scale.”
— Adam Helfgott, Founder & CEO of Madhive
“Madhive believes in extensive collaboration to move the industry forward, and we are excited to partner with Goldman Sachs to fuel our next chapter of growth.”
— Spencer Potts, President of Madhive
“We have been deeply impressed with Madhive’s growth and success in the local CTV advertising market within just seven years since its inception. We are incredibly excited to partner with the Madhive team to drive long-term growth and value creation together.”
— Leonard Seevers, a Partner and Co-Head of Technology, Media and Telecom investments in the Private Equity business within Goldman Sachs
“We believe Madhive’s purpose-built, end-to-end CTV platform which enables hyper-local precision targeting at national scale is truly differentiated within the ad-tech ecosystem. We see tremendous growth ahead in the company’s existing and adjacent markets and look forward to supporting Madhive to further accelerate the company’s journey.”
— Joon Park, a Managing Director in the Private Equity business within Goldman Sachs
