- Roku announced recently that it is buying video ad platform company Dataxu for $150 million in cash and stock. These are the details.
Roku recently announced that it is buying video ad platform company Dataxu for $150 million in cash and stock. Through this acquisition, Roku will have more ways to build on its programmatic video advertising business. Dataxu provides marketers with automated bidding and self-serve software for managing ad campaigns across digital platforms.
Dataxu runs a demand-side platform for planning and buying programmatic video ad campaigns. And when Dataxu is combined with Roku’s ad business, they will be able to reach 30.5 million active users across desktops, mobile devices, OTT, and TVs.
Roku SVP and GM of the Platform Business told Forbes that OTT is a unique media that can be more accessible to marketers than linear TV so “the buy tools and planning set is an important eventual result of the work that we’re going to do with the team here.”
Advertisers spend over $70 billion in traditional TV and Magna Global estimates that OTT accounts for 29% of viewing while receiving just 3% of TV ad budgets. This means that the opportunity is ripe for that format.
“TV advertising is shifting toward OTT and a data-driven model focused on business outcomes for brands,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood in a statement. “The acquisition of Dataxu will accelerate our ad platform while also helping our content partners monetize their inventory even more effectively.”
Earlier this year, Amazon opened its connected TV apps that are integrated with Amazon Publisher Services for advertisers that utilize Dataxu and The Trade Desk. As a result, ad inventory for third-party TV content providers on Amazon’s Fire TV devices opened up for ad companies working with those companies.
“Today dataxu has been recognized by firms like Forrester and our customers alike as a leading video-centric DSP, continuing to innovate with advanced OTT audience, forecasting, inventory and measurement capabilities,” wrote Dataxu co-founder and CEO Michael Baker in a blog post. “We see a future where Roku is using dataxu solutions to put industry-best data, premium inventory and measurement tools in the hands of advertisers. We look forward to sharing more as the teams begin working together. For now, it’s business as usual for our customers, partners, and employees. It’s been an incredible journey and we’d like to thank our many friends, collaborators and customers who have played such an important part along the way. Looking ahead, we are excited to be part of the incredible Roku story.”
