Innovid goes public via $1.3bn merger
June 24, 2021
Connected TV ad delivery and measurement platform Innovid has entered into a definitive merger agreement with ION Acquisition Corp 2, a special purpose acquisition company. The combined company will operate under the Innovid name and will trade on a US national exchange. The transaction is expected to close in Q4 of 2021, subject to approval by the shareholders of ION, and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.
Founded in 2008, Innovid provides critical technology infrastructure for the creation, delivery, and measurement of TV ads across CTV, mobile TV and desktop TV. As the only ad server purpose-built for TV, Innovid developed the first and still the most advanced CTV SDK on the market. Innovid’s SDK powers personalised and interactive experiences in CTV through direct integrations across over 50 apps, providing the infrastructure layer behind the advertising shown by some of the biggest names in streaming including Roku and Hulu.
The company has spent the past decade focused on building deep relationships across the CTV and OTT industry. Through this focus Innovid has achieved a growing list of industry firsts and key milestones including: the first and only ACR integration with Roku, the first and only buy-side ad server w/MRC certification for CTV measurement, the first and only platform delivering ads into NBCU’s Peacock, as well as serving the first and only interactive Super Bowl ad. The company has also actively worked to connect the different parts of the TV ad-tech ecosystem by launching a consortium with leading independent programmatic platforms The Trade Desk (TTD), Magnite (MGNI), and others to power advanced creative buying at scale across CTV. As the $200 billion dollar TV industry continues to shift to CTV, the company is positioned to take a leadership role in a significant and high growth market.
Additionally, over the past few years, Innovid has expanded its offering to encompass independent global ad serving, data-driven personalisation, and new forms of measurement designed to connect all channels in a clean, comparable, and privacy-compliant manner. This offering gives marketers the option to consolidate CTV advertising with desktop TV, mobile TV, display, social and more, through Innovid’s proprietary omni-channel solutions. Furthermore, the open platform boasts a slew of workflows and integrations to seamlessly integrate ad delivery and optimisation with preferred external providers. Of note, Innovid does not transact media and therefore has zero media buying conflicts, enabling it to work as a truly independent company across the entire advertising ecosystem.
Innovid at scale:
- Innovid serves a global client base of brands, agencies, and publishers through offices across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific, delivering ads across a growing global footprint.
- Innovid currently serves over 40 per cent of the top 200 US TV advertisers, providing technology infrastructure to enable the creation, delivery, and measurement of TV ads across CTV, mobile TV and desktop TV.
- The Innovid ad serving platform grew impression delivery across CTV devices by more than 70 per cent year-to-date 2021 over the same period in 2020.
- Named a leader in the Forrester Wave: Creative Ad Tech, Q4 2020 report, the technology powers the generation of personalised ad permutations as well as ad delivery across a footprint spanning over 75 million connected homes.
“Innovid is entering an exciting new chapter of growth as a public company, a major milestone that corresponds with rising adoption and demands for streaming television,” declared Zvika Netter, Co-Founder and CEO at Innovid. “The rapid shift of viewership from linear TV to streaming has driven marketers to make CTV a strategic investment focus. Our technology was purpose-built for TV which has allowed us to win in the marketplace and contributed to our rapid growth to date.”
“As a public company, we expect that we will be able to build on our leading market position, accelerate the growth of our business, and remain the independent platform trusted by the world’s largest TV advertisers. We are proud to have built an independent and neutral software platform to allow advertisers to create, deliver and measure digital TV ads and aim to continue to provide the industry a market leading and transparent offering independent of the large technology walled-garden players who dominate many other parts of the digital world,” he added.
“We believe Innovid has built an exceptional platform for digital TV advertisers to assist them as they transition $200 billion of TV advertising budgets to the world of digital TV,” commented Gilad Shany, CEO of ION. “We are excited to partner in bringing Innovid to the public markets to provide the appropriate capital structure and shareholder base to enable Innovid to lead this market as an independent company. We were looking to merge with an exceptional company with roots in the Israeli hi-tech ecosystem and Innovid’s incredible achievements speak for themselves. The combination of long-term partnerships built by the company throughout the CTV and OTT industry, their strong relationships with the largest TV advertisers in the world, unique ad serving technology and focus on a usage-based software business model, allows Innovid to provide significant value to the digital TV advertising ecosystem while also achieving attractive unit economics as the company grows. With many years of growth ahead as users continue the shift from linear to digital TV, we look forward to joining Zvika and the team for an exciting journey and incredible business opportunities.”