In this episode, Rich is joined by Dave Barr and Nick Fletcher, colleagues at FirstPartyStudio and co-founders of TruTxt, a company incubated through the Studio and backed by FirstPartyCapital. They unpack the “language tax”: the large share of premium publisher traffic that arrives from non-local-language territories and gets monetised poorly, killing engagement, advertiser demand and yields.

We get into:

• Why up to 40–45% of a publisher’s traffic can be in non-local language — and why it’s historically been ignored in the boardroom

• Why Google Translate doesn’t solve it (and actively costs publishers ad signals)

• How TruTxt serves content in the user’s device language under a single URL, sending the right signals into the ad auction to lift display CPMs

• The hidden video opportunity: why publishers switch off video for foreign traffic, and how re-activating and translating it drives the biggest revenue uplift

• Real examples - Brazilian government spending, a global food brand’s “measuring cups” problem, and a Formula One site’s Indian opportunity

• The rev-share, easy-to-integrate, size-agnostic model — and the parallels to Bedrock and the FirstPartyStudio playbook

• The £250k angel round TruTxt is currently raising

The FPC Podcast timeline:

00:00 The State of Publishing Disruption

02:49 Monetising Foreign Traffic

05:41 The Language Tax Explained

08:23 TruTxt vs. Google Translate

11:10 Unlocking Video Monetisation

13:54 Real-World Insights and Case Studies

16:51 Potential Revenue Uplift for Publishers

19:19 Expanding Geographical Reach

22:13 Direct Demand and Future Roadmap

24:58 Details of TruTxt’s Angel Round & Growth Plans

As FPC pens this edition’s missive, the news has broken that Anthropic has raised a Series H (yes, the 8th letter of the alphabet) round of $65B, giving it a post-money valuation of $965 billion. AI may well be the second coming, but you can’t help feeling the arse is going to fall out of this market at some stage. History never repeats; it rhymes.

A combination of corporate pullback and skyrocketing computational cost will no doubt take a rusty hacksaw to darling standalone Frontier LLM companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. FPC is a big believer in the tech, but open-source models will win out in the end.

Do you really want to get trapped by another Silicon Valley behemoth? Absolutely not. That’s why most corporations built on Linux during the OS wars. It’ll be no different here.

AI Can Build Utility For Publishers

It is strange to introduce a piece about “publisher utility” with an AI narrative when these frontier models were built - for free - off the blood, sweat and tears of content producers. No thanks. No compensation. Just fodder for the hyperscalers.

Despite all the negativity, though, AI is starting to present some interesting applications for publishers. FirstPartyCapital has been helping to incubate a new startup that addresses an overlooked part of the publisher inventory stack - with AI as a core capability.

TruTxt launched itself out of FPS this week. Led by Nick Fletcher and Dave Barr, the company aims to turn “distressed” international inventory into higher-yielding premium supply.

It is a big problem both Dave and Nick have seen throughout their long and illustrious careers - and have been busily building a solution over the past six months to help publishers better monetise international traffic.

Ad Tech Alchemy: Turning “Distressed” Into Something Of Value

Premium publishers have long struggled with how to properly monetise international traffic. How best to boost yield on non-native speakers who engage with content? AdSense and house ads are typically the go-to, paying pennies on the dollar/pound/euro/yen/rupee. But that is a terrible waste of attention.

There are publishers in the UK, for instance, with huge traffic in Africa, mostly from their always-on coverage of the Premiership. The traffic often spikes when an African footballer of note has played well - a Salah hat-trick or a Semenyo back-heeled goal. The problem for these publishers is that non-native speakers do not translate into meaningful revenue.

TruTxt is a solution that does real-time translation of publisher content across multiple languages to ensure better pricing. How does it work?

TruTxt has three key components:

1. Scaled translation: Post-ad call, Google Translate can translate most text at a functional level, allowing users to read the content. The issue here is that it doesn’t solve the problem of localising this user for buyers and plugging the signal into the programmatic demand stack. Publishers are making next to nothing in this instance. Now, publishers could build something functional of their own, but they would run into computational problems that make the process insanely expensive. That is where open-source models hosted on O&O servers play a big role in reducing costs. Tough to do. Even harder at scale. TruTxt has built this capability.

2. The signal: One of the big factors weighing on international pricing is the availability of anonymised geo data that can be shared with buyers. Location data is a key part of enriching the international impression. The TruTxt solution plugs this into buyers, maximising yield.

3. The demand stack: Having sales people in the market - from Sau Paiulo to Lagos to Hanoi - selling premium publisher supply (IO, curation and enriching open market inventory) to buyers is a critical piece of the TruTxt proposition. The objective is to build a comprehensive demand stack built around existing programmatic infrastructure, working with globally scaled partners like Index Exchange, on web and app.

Boring, Boring Ad Tech

It’s worth stressing again that boring is beautiful. TruTxt is a new model that does one boring thing really well. This will be a trend from FirstPartyCapital for the rest of the decade.

What can we build that addresses a real problem instead of chasing the latest trend (AI algos, CTV SMB, etc)? What can we build that isn’t necessarily a fast follower of US ad tech solutions developed specifically for the US market? It doesn’t always translate (excuse the pun) to the ROW.

This type of business is not something US ad tech will build anyway because it’s not a priority. In an insanely fragmented non-US market where we operate, TruTxt becomes a critical piece of infrastructure for the world’s biggest publishers.

If you are interested in partnering with TruTxt, reach out to Nick & Dave. We are doing a small seed round right now to help with dev hires and the global rollout. FirstPartyCapital has already invested and will be committing more in the coming months.

Boring, boring ad tech indeed. Have a great ad tech day.

The pod discusses how the deal validates many of the core beliefs behind Audiences, particularly the idea that sensitive first-party data should reside within a brand’s own cloud environment rather than be handed to third-party platforms, and why the deal could trigger both M&A activity and a broader strategic reset, as agencies, publishers, advertisers and data owners rethink who they trust with data infrastructure.

The episode also covers whether LiveRamp’s agency neutrality can survive under Publicis ownership, why RampID may be less powerful outside the US and beyond the open web, and how the convergence of ad tech and cloud infrastructure could open up a new generation of opportunities for companies like Audiences, Bedrock and others in the FirstPartyCapital portfolio.

The FPC Podcast timeline:

00:00 - Introduction and Cannes preview

01:24 - Is Publicis/LiveRamp the new Google / DoubleClick moment?

03:41 - Rob McLaughlin joins the conversation

04:44 - Why LiveRamp made data onboarding matter

07:26 - Can LiveRamp stay neutral under Publicis?

10:00 - Can media holding companies run enterprise software businesses?

11:00 - Why other holdcos may partner rather than buy

12:00 - The “tax” on first-party data

15:04 - Infrastructure, identity and data

17:50 - What brands really think of as data infrastructure

19:10 - Why only a small share of media spend uses first-party data

21:00 - Ad tech meets cloud infrastructure

22:26 - What the deal means for agencies

24:54 - The global impact beyond the US

27:45 - Open internet, open web and RampID’s changing role

29:57 - Audiences’ roadmap and the future of interoperability

30:06 - Agent training and sensitive first-party data

32:48 - Closing thoughts and upcoming episodes

The conversation digs into Bedrock’s recent announcement with Index Exchange, which sees Bedrock’s bidder containerised inside Index Cloud. Shane explains why bringing bid decisioning closer to the impression can dramatically reduce latency, lower infrastructure costs, and unlock more sophisticated use of data, models and signals in real-time media buying.

The team also explores the return of specialist and verticalised bidders, the role of agentic workflows in campaign execution, the importance of composability and standards, and why the next wave of ad tech innovation may come from independent, highly focused players rather than the traditional scaled platforms.

The FPC Podcast timeline:

00:00 - Introduction

Welcome to episode 32 of the FPC Podcast with returning guest Shane Shevlin, CEO and founder of Bedrock Platform.

01:00 - What is Bedrock Platform?

Shane introduces Bedrock as a next-generation media buying platform, with a focus on agentic workflows, automation and composable infrastructure.

02:44 - Bedrock’s Index Cloud announcement

The team discusses Bedrock’s recent partnership with Index Exchange and the significance of containerising Bedrock’s bidder inside Index Cloud.

04:23 - Why containerisation matters

Shane explains the cost, infrastructure and performance benefits of deploying Bedrock’s codebase inside Index’s environment.

07:02 - Collapsing the latency window

A deep dive into how reducing bid decisioning latency from tens of milliseconds to near-instantaneous response times can unlock new capabilities.

09:31 - More signals, better outcomes

Kevin explains how access to more signal data, from geospatial to retail and transactional data, can improve media buying performance.

11:27 - The rise of specialist bidders

The conversation explores how Bedrock’s composable stack could make it easier and cheaper to build verticalised bidders for specific use cases, channels and audiences.

14:15 - What this means for SSPs and DSPs

Ciarán shares his view on whether other SSPs will adopt containerisation, and why Bedrock may occupy a new role in the ecosystem.

17:47 - Composability, portability and standards

Shane and Kevin discuss the importance of open standards, shared infrastructure and collaborative development in the next phase of ad tech.

22:08 - New channels and new optimism

The group discusses emerging environments such as agentic advertising, live sports and high-speed monetisation, and why the market feels exciting again.

23:04 - What has changed in the industry?

Kevin reflects on the technological, financial and cultural shifts that have created a new generation of ad tech challengers.

25:35 - Shane’s experience building bidders

Shane talks about the lessons learned from building multiple bidding systems and how Bedrock is applying that experience to CTV, video, audio and performance.

27:37 - Pathfinder and agentic capabilities

Shane discusses Bedrock’s Pathfinder agents and early client tests around emerging specs and workflows.

28:35 - The thousand-bidder dream returns

Rich closes by reflecting on how Bedrock and Index may bring back the original programmatic dream of many specialist bidders built for different use cases.

29:43 - Next episode preview

A preview of the next FPC Podcast episode, featuring Rob McLaughlin of Audiences and a discussion of the Publicis-LiveRamp announcement.

Attention, readers. The following is a PSA (Public Service Announcement). The Cannes Social is returning on Tuesday, June 23. FirstPartyCapital is again partnering with ExchangeWire to host one of the great networking events of our age. We will be back at our spiritual home in Cannes, Ma Nolans.

The whole pub will be rented out for the great and good of the industry to discuss the latest trends and, of course, close massive deals (bring those sales contracts). Prepare yourself for zeitgeisty, geeky Cannes revelry. Thousands signed up last year to attend. If you want to go this year, sign up using the link below.

I want to go to The Cannes Social

Thanks to The Cannes Social sponsors - Picnic, Silverpush and Screencore - for making this event possible. The people of ad tech (and post-ad tech) salute you. If you are looking to support the largest get-together at Cannes, then send an email to sales@thewirecorp.com for more information. Incredible reach and scaled brand equity guaranteed.

We all look forward to seeing you there.

This week, ad tech LinkStagram - taking a deserved break from selfies, self-promotion and meandering emoji-filled AI-produced posts - blew up with the news that Publicis acquired LiveRamp. It was a big “spin out” moment for indie ad tech.

LiveRamp provides a lot of the onboarding and ID graph plumbing for the industry. So, it’s going to be a big story, right? Absolutely, if you are in the US. LiveRamp has a tiny footprint outside the US, from a revenue and tech perspective. More on that later.

The economics of the deal were decent - 12x EBITDA is not bad given the company’s weak growth. If you were looking for a chunky multiple on the topline, you clearly missed the changing M&A dynamics. Increasingly, deals are being done on EBIDTA multiples.

It’s Not Ad Tech; It’s An AI Thing

It was interesting how Publicis explained this acquisition: specifically, to accelerate data co-creation for smarter agents. They described LiveRamp as an interoperable collaboration platform connecting data across all major cloud environments, with a network of 25,000 publishers and more than 500 data and technology partners.

It isn’t ad tech anymore; it’s the foundational layer to something bigger. It is something we have been ruminating on at FPC for a while now. The standout companies in Fund 1 - the ones that will exit for decent money - are data and infrastructure companies. And the companies in Fund 2 are even more focused on proprietary data and the tooling to maximise value.

As we move to an ecosystem where software is no longer a moat, you need to lean into the true differentiator: 1st-party data. In this edition of The FirstPartyCapital Newsletter, we discuss the new post-ad tech ecosystem and how a $1 trillion industry became a $5 trillion one.

The $5 Trillion Attention Economy - Yes, Please

Ad tech has always had a stupidly narrow view of itself - effectively, a tech layer servicing open (browser-based) web display advertising. Fortunes have been made and careers defined. But the world has moved on since the humble web banner was first served all those years ago. Walled gardens have eaten up a sizeable share, and the LLMs are now savaging the corpse of a once mighty part of the media landscape.

When we launched the fund, we talked about the $1 trillion ad industry - and how ad tech powered that. It felt like a stretch, but it was necessary. The industry has done itself a disservice by downplaying its importance. And now it’s getting hammered for it. The decline in public stocks is indicative of this. Investors hate ad tech. The dominant narrative right now: ad tech is tethered to a dying open web. Wall Street always needs a believable thesis to build a positive valuation story.

All of this is lamentably lazy, reductive thinking. FPC believes we now live in a post-ad tech world, where the opportunity has shifted from outdated mediation to a data-and-infrastructure story. Our best prospects and future investments will power a $5 trillion industry comprising advertising, media and content, marketing technology and agency services, retail and commerce media, and the creator economy - all connected by data infrastructure (identity, measurement, and signal) that makes all of it work.

It’s also important to note the critical importance of developing solutions for walled gardens - especially for ROW. They are even more entrenched outside the US. If you are not building for omnichannel in a post-ad tech context, your opportunity will be severely limited in this $5 trillion economy.

Who Are You?

Is this an identity (excuse the pun) crisis for FPC and the industry at large? Yes. It’s difficult to let go of something that has served you so well. Ad tech is a badge of honour for most, but its rigid definition has become a millstone around the industry’s neck. You only have to take a cursory look around to understand the new lay of the land: shrinking supply chains, walled-garden hegemony, holdcos moving to outcomes-based business models, the decline of managed service, and (rightly) challenged margins. Companies can play in a post-ad tech world, but they need a fundamental step change.

From an FPC perspective, our investment thesis has had to evolve in line with these seismic changes. We are staying away from media business models, as they will remain challenged and constrained by agencies seeking greater control. Does the world need more algorithm-based optimisation ad nets or LLM-powered planning tools? We think not.

To be frank, readers, there is a severe paucity of ideas out there right now - hence why we are incubating more startups. That could be coloured by how we increasingly see our own place in the ecosystem. The US produces great ad tech, but we don’t want to be fast followers, hoping a larger US company will acquire our portcos.

Ultimately, it doesn’t optimise for good financial outcomes. For Fund 2, we are looking at more progressive and innovative ideas - building on our unique strengths in this part of the world (and there are quite a few).

A Divergence In US & Non-US Ad Tech

In this post-ad tech world, there will be divergence between the US and ROW. The US has the biggest ad market in the world. Even if independent ad tech can retain a foothold, the opportunity will be large enough to be interesting.

Non-US companies will flock to the “glitz and glamour” of Possible and CES to try to own a piece of the pie. And they absolutely should if that is their MO. But factors like data sovereignty, national interests (government mandates to use local tech), and compliance will act as a buffer to global scale. US ad tech isn’t built for this. The irony now is that US scale does not equal global scale.

FPC sees a whole new ecosystem emerging outside the US across areas such as compliance infrastructure, sovereign tech, regulated industries, vertical platforms, and adjacent data businesses. This post-ad tech landscape will be tricky for traditional ad tech to navigate. And if you think this is a throwaway statement, look at the revenue breakdown of the big ad tech cos - US versus ROW. This is why LiveRamp didn’t work internationally: it’s a US ad tech company that never really adapted to the global market.

This deserves a white paper, which we will put together before Cannes, as it is a meaty enough subject to warrant a deeper analytical dive. It will become central to our fund thesis going forward.

If you think this is a break-up letter to ad tech, you are mistaken. For FPC, it's about the necessary evolution of a critical sector that we belive has massive upside in the years to come.

And that’s it for this edition. Welcome to the first day of the post-ad tech world. As Joe Strummer once asked on The Clash’s “Clampdown”: “What are we going to do now?” A ton of new stuff should be your instinctive reply.

The FPC Podcast timeline:

• The FastPay reunion and what OAREX has built since (170 clients, ~$5bn of ad spend processed).

• The $5M worked example - what a properly blended raise actually looks like on the cap table.

• The hidden upside: with debt in place, founders pick the right investor, not just the highest bidder.

• Ciarán on weaponising payment terms - AdSense, Trade Desk, and the bank inside every ad tech business.

• The founder mistakes Rich, and Matt keep watching: waiting too long, signing the wrong contracts, and assuming “debt is expensive” without doing the maths.

Andrew closes the loop on what he told us last June: that the market needed to move past duplicative platform work and reprice infrastructure to near zero. Index Cloud is the productisation of that thesis, and Bedrock, paired with it, is the first real-world proof that a small, focused DSP can listen to the entire internet at scale and compete on value-add rather than access to capital.

The FPC Podcast timeline:

00:00 Introduction to the FPC Podcast and Guests

01:06 Recap of Possible and Index Cloud Announcement

03:24 Understanding Index Cloud and Its Innovations

07:05 Performance Improvements and Cost Reductions

12:19 The Future of Ad Tech and Market Dynamics

15:51 Turning Points in Ad Tech and DSP Opportunities

20:59 Challenges in Live Sports and QPS Management

25:17 The Role of Containerisation in Ad Tech

30:00 The Open Internet vs. Walled Gardens

34:48 The Future of Collaboration in Ad Tech

The FPC Podcast timeline:

00:00 Introduction to the Ad Tech Ecosystem

01:28 The Evolution of Ad Tech Infrastructure

03:53 The Rise of Containerised DSPs

07:34 AdTech Innovations in Live Streaming

09:53 Margin Compression in Ad Tech

14:32 Investing in Innovative Ad Tech Solutions

20:02 Technical Difficulties and Communication Challenges

21:00 Investment Convictions in Ad Tech

22:02 The Role of Bedrock in Ad Tech Innovation

24:49 Cloud Computing and Data Privacy in Ad Tech

27:51 The Importance of First-Party Data

30:46 Lumen’s Role in Attention Measurement

34:02 Future Trends in Ad Tech and Closing Remarks

Hello readers. We took a little break from writing the newsletter for a few weeks. It’s all quality here, not quantity. We are not in the business of news analysis or rehashing other people’s work. Faux zeitgeisty narrative is a definite no. Original ad tech material, only - to paraphrase the lyrical genius of The Streets on Let’s Push Things Forward.

The day-to-day has also been a contributing factor to our mini hiatus: we’ve been busy incubating a bunch of new ad tech businesses, which will be a huge feature of Fund 2 (more on that thesis at a later date). Some exciting left-field solutions are coming your way very soon.

Bedrock Platform: The True (Only) Heir To IPONWEB & AppNexus

The subject of this week’s edition was originally an incubated startup within FPC and is now building the most innovative, bleeding-edge programmatic ad tech in the business. We are, of course, talking about Bedrock Platform.

In case you missed it, Bedrock Platform announced a new innovation in ad tech, the containerised DSP. In partnership with Index Exchange, Bedrock has built a highly efficient, cost-effective way to execute programmatic buys on the sell side.

Now you might be asking: what is containerisation, and why should it matter to buyers? Those would be excellent questions.

Before we tackle those queries, though, it’s important to talk about the collapse of this laughable buyside/sell-side demarcation. SSPs compete with legacy DSPs, and legacy DSPs compete with SSPs. End of.

Just have a cursory look at SSP open roles - mostly demand-focused gigs. The narrative of “one platform” and “mono access” dominates. For SSPs, all the growth is direct access for brands and agencies.

There is a caveat to this trend, though: the modern DSP/buying platform. Instead of a monolithic DSP stack, you have a composable framework where Bedrock Platform becomes the tech layer for its customers’ optimisation or data. In short, it is a malleable technology layer that can run anywhere.

Containerisation is the perfect manifestation of this - especially in the context of DSP/SSP dynamics. Bedrock Platform can now run its bidder within the Index tech stack, hosting the buying logic alongside the inventory.

This allows Index Exchange to remain wholly aligned with the sell-side-first, and Bedrock can independently serve its buy-side customers. It’s a strange ecosystem indeed - but somehow this works.

Containerisation goes way beyond clunky, invariably unworkable DSP-to-SSP deal-ID activation. It is beautifully efficient and performant by comparison.

FPC was going to explain all this with a crude visual, but luckily, Bedrock Platform has done an excellent job in articulating the complexity in this magnificent video explanation (see below).

What This Means For Performance & Margin Retention

This is a big deal. Hosting the Bedrock Platform bidder inside Index’s infrastructure increases performance and win rates for buyers. There is zero latency and data leakage. That has huge implications in ad performance, putting it on par with walled gardens.

A major attraction of containerisation is margin retention. It will be significantly cheaper to use a Bedrock/Index instance than to use a buy-side stack to activate programmatic buys.

Driving down infrastructure costs will have big P&L implications for principal media buyers or ad networks running IOs/deal IDs. Readers might scoff/tut-tut at such a reductive view of the industry. Ultimately, money talks.

When you layer in omnichannel supply access and easy-to-use agentic capabilities, you now have the ultimate trading tool.

Agencies, Ad Nets & Onboarders: Time To Move To Bedrock Platform (Natch!)

If you are in the margin game, it’s hard to see how a legacy DSP can make sense. For a big global FMCG or any scaled global brand, the traditional DSP makes perfect sense. This will always be a huge chunk of the market.

For others, though, like ad nets, principal media buyers or big media cos looking to buy their own supply, the logic isn’t there.

The recent spat between TTD and Publicis was not about “hidden fees”; it was about where the margin will go. Buy-side DSPs plus principal media buying just don’t work - especially if you want campaigns to perform.

Margin is existential for ad nets: they need to optimise for EBIDTA to have any chance of an acquisition; an extra couple of percentage points will make all the difference in a liquidity event.

Media companies buying their own supply (from RMNs to big-scale pubs to streamers to apps) via a DSP will always be constrained by an inflated DSP take rate.

That won’t be the only reason to switch, though: building on legacy solutions with fixed and inflexible product roadmaps makes it harder to stay competitive.

There are very few (if any). solutions built specifically for the “ad tech middle” - a constituency that was once well served by AppNexus and IPONWEB. But no longer.

The “Ad Tech Middle” is frustrated by the lack of innovation and the self-serving business interests of the current ad tech offerings.

The ATM is invariably seen as a “nice to have” customer segment, just not business-critical.

There is a big gap in ad tech capability. Bedrock Platform is filling that void. FPC is excited to see such a real prospect emerge from the European ad tech ecosystem. And the upside has only begun.

The no-brainer move now: test Bedrock Platform offering; start to reclaim agency over your tech and economic future.

It’s all about the Ad Tech Middle FTW.

And on the public service notice, we will leave it there, readers. Have a great ad tech day.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark Carney delivered a seminal speech on the “middle powers” absolute necessity to take greater agency over their geopolitical futures.

The crux of his argument: that there has been an overdependence on the big global powers, and now is the time to untether from overbearing hegemons and build a new partnership of equals - reclaiming some semblance of control.

It’s probably a stretch to use a similar analogy in ad tech, but that’s what we do here on The FPC Newsletter. The tenuous links are expected.

The GAM (Google, Amazon and Meta) Effect

The hyperscalers continue to run roughshod over our great industry (examples are too many to list here). The 20 percenters are under siege.

Through a combination of overwhelming scale, walled-garden shenanigans, and impressive execution, they have taken a sizeable slice of the market. Despite their best efforts, though, the independent ad tech industry is still thriving.

The continued growth of established players and the emergence of new, scaled ad businesses are proving that the world is much bigger than Google, Amazon and Meta.

Maybe it’s best we all acquiesce to these scaled ad tech powers. Seems like a safe partnership, right? Seems like a bullet-proof economic model? Undoubtedly, it’s the partnership your mother would approve of.

Time To Go Your Own Way

In summary, it’s a no-brainer decision to outsource all tech capability to GAM. Sure, right up until your - invariably low margin - dependable business model gets upended by a high-octane Silicon Valley product team or a PowerPoint-loving exec looking to leave a mark. Or worse, a panicked, burn-the-house-down mega-industry pivot.

You could instead take your cue from Mark Carney: go your own way and build something more durable (in cooperation with the best and brightest in ad tech).

FirstPartyCapital believes that owning your commercial and tech future is, in the long term, the inherently more sensible path. And it would seem some of the smartest industry operators agree.

Corporate Partnership Framework Is Resonating

Since launching our new corporate partnership initiative, we have received some interesting outreach. Just a recap on the new corporate offering - in case you haven’t seen it:

• Outsourced R&D: Access our engineers (FirstPartyStudio) to build bespoke data/ad tech solutions without the massive overhead.

• Strategic Equity: Gain a seat at the table and co-invest in category-leading ad tech alongside our 250+ industry LPs.

• Market Intel: Quarterly briefings on AI, M&A, and non-US infrastructure shifts to keep you abreast of industry trends that affect your business.

So why are these strategics looking to work with FPC directly?

An unparalleled - and, yes, unbiased - view of the non-US ad tech world. Product development deep dives. Cutting-edge ad tech co-builds. Unique deal flow. Access to the most innovative ad tech startups. Take your pick.

Ultimately, it boils down to one word: autonomy. That’s what a vibrant industry needs, and that’s what we want to offer our partners.

We are open to speaking with smart, forward-looking corporate investors and partners. If that’s you, drop us a line at contact@firstpartycapital.com.

Sign Up For The Vendi Tech Webinar - March 23

As you know, we are doing a syndicate raise for ad tech HALO champion, Vendi Tech.

The OOH starlet is one of our best prospects for Fund 2.

Here we outline our reasons why this unique OOH and retail media crossover solution is very investible: https://newsletter.firstpartycapital.com/p/ad-tech-value-investment-why-we-are.

We will be hosting a webinar with Vendi Tech CEO, Harry Maitland-Titterton, on Mar 23. He will give a deep dive on the Vendi Tech opportunity and will field questions from potential investors. You can sign up here to book your Vendi Tech spot: https://tinyurl.com/VendiTech.

And that’s it for this edition. Have a great ad tech day.

Hello readers, and welcome to another edition of the FirstPartyCapital newsletter. The SaaSpocalypse has had a huge impact on software company valuations. This collapse in value happened mostly because of tools released by Claude and other LLMs, which automated tasks, reduced headcount needs, and forced a pivot toward AI-driven efficiency.

The public markets have taken a chainsaw to companies perceived to be at risk from the rise of vibe-coded dopplegangers. The rationale: with Claude and other LLMs, it’s now relatively easy to build software that can scale to the size of Salesforce et al.

HALO

Obviously, if you discount the deep integrations into some of the biggest companies in the world, the army of salespeople (to sell it), the army of developers (to develop and maintain it), the marketing, and all the rest of the things that go into running a multi-billion dollar software company, that would be a very sound thesis. But it isn’t.

Regardless, investors are rotating aggressively out of traditional SaaS stocks and into more durable assets. This investment trend even has a new acronym, HALO. No, not the Texas MOR pop gem from the late 90s.

HALO stands for Heavy Assets, Low Obsolescence. The crux of this new Wall Street thesis is the following: the market has shifted from “asset-light” software companies toward “real-world” infrastructure, and while AI can replace code, it cannot replace a physical railroad, power grid, or oil refinery. Heavy infrastructure-based stuff wins basically.

Could this happen in ad tech? In this newsletter, we discuss the HALO effect, why OOH is the trade and why we are investing in startups like Vendi.

OOH, The Ultimate HALO Play

You could argue, right now, that OOH is a far more interesting channel than CTV. Web-based ad tech has packed up shop and bet the farm on winning a share of the CTV ad pie. It’s become a massively overcrowded space that’s increasingly dominated by the hyperscalers.

OOH, on the other hand, has not seen the same level of hype as CTV, despite seeing over $2 billion in M&A in 2025 and expected growth of 7%-8% per year until the mid-2030s. It’s still relatively open in terms of opportunity. Innovation can still win.

But what’s really interesting is the channel’s robustness in the face of AI disruption. It is the ultimate HALO channel. Here are a few snackable reasons as to why it’s an essential go-to for marketers in an age of unpredictable AI change:

• Real-world scarcity FTW: AI can create infinite websites and digital ads instantly, but it cannot vibe-code a new junction, making existing physical signs more valuable as digital space collapses.

• The trusted channel: In a world flooded with fake AI-slop content and growing trust issues, owning a massive physical billboard signals that a brand is legitimate, solvent, and has the resources to operate offline.

• The emotional quotient: In a media landscape fragmented into a million pieces, brand equity is hard to come by. The billboard becomes a watercooler moment - the ultimate mid-to-upper funnel moment that drives the user to the prompt. The ultimate brand building and HALO crossover.

• Part of our real-world landscape: While AI agents now automatically hide or summarise digital ads for users, they cannot “block” a massive physical structure standing in the real world as you pass.

• Infrastructure built over decades: While social media apps and websites go viral and die within months, these steel-and-glass structures are integrated into infrastructure, providing a predictable source of longevity for media buyers.

Vendi - Our Latest HALO investment

This, of course, segues beautifully into the syndicate fund raise we are currently running for Vendi Tech. Vendi provides “smart” vending machines to some of the UK’s largest pub, gym, and retail brands.

It produces automated product dispensers and works with brands to distribute physical products to targeted audiences. It then uses this first-party data to power a DOOH offering.

Fixed physical asset - with utility - serving a non-intrusive DOOH display. Vendi is the ultimate HALO play. The more you think about this, the more you realise how valuable companies like Vendi will become - as people seek out real-world spaces (pubs, gyms and retail) to escape the AI-powered digital pollution that dominates daily life.

The Vendi Tech deal is now live here: https://investors.firstpartycapital.com/deal/detail/bf795272-1906-42b1-b223-630dc2563820. It’s time,e you had an AI hedge.

FPC Fund 2 will be making an investment after we finish this syndicate round. Here are the reasons why we are investing:

• Vendi sits at the intersection of retail media and OOH. It is already working with major gym, pub, and retail brands, helping build new incremental revenue streams through its automated vending machines. Its product-dispensing solution enables brands to engage a targeted audience. Layer on top of that a data-driven OOH ad network, and you have a sticky, profitable ad tech play. Once embedded, it’s hard to displace.

• The Vendi Team: Harry Maitland-Titterton, Vendi CEO, has extensive experience in the retail sector. This led him to identify a significant market gap in the automated vending machine space. He launched Vendi in 2023 and has since signed several major retail brands. As the product evolved to a first-party data and OOH solution, Harry surrounded himself with some of the smartest people in ad tech.

• Vendi is primed for scale. The company has nailed the unit economics on its machines and has built its ad stack to help brands reach new audiences. Now its core customers want it to expand into Europe and beyond. Honestly, it is hard not to get excited about Vendi - and the opportunity that lies ahead for Harry and team. This is a proper, moat-heavy industrial ad tech. Steel, glass, product and OOH ads. Ridiculously investable.

• The best companies in ad tech are utility solutions with a margin-heavy and scalable ad business bolted on. Think Uber and PayPal - but for OOH. As with its peers, Vendi’s utility feeds into its advertising offering.

• Vendi is quintessential ad tech value investing. With a unique fixed supply and proprietary party data, Vendi is a business with a higher likelihood of delivering a return to investors.

• From an M&A perspective, the OOH space is buoyant. In 2025, there were over $2 billion in transactions. OOH is a growing sector. In the age of chatbots and Q&A search engines, OOH becomes existential for brand building as the lower funnel collapses into a prompt.

• EIS cover on this deal for UK investors. Tax rebates are available on this raise.

Access The Vendi Deal Here

And that’s it, readers. Have a great weekend. Stay safe.

The FPC Podcast timeline:

00:00 Introduction to FPC and Corporate Innovation

02:08 The FPC Stack and Its Evolution

06:07 Corporate Partnerships and Innovation Strategies

09:55 Market Intelligence and Insights

17:59 Addressing Challenges in Ad Tech and Publishing

22:08 Incubation and Future Innovations

It would be fair to say that ad tech investment remains concentrated and consolidated. From the outside looking in, the same insiders continue to be masters at capturing the lion’s share of the upside.

Celebrity bankers, influencers, and ad tech OGs skillfully leverage influence, networks and capital to build success. Nothing wrong with that, of course. We continue to see it as a great framework for building something new.

New Fund, New Blueprint

Taking these learnings, FPC set out from the start to optimise ad tech investment - deliberately opening up to a broader cohort and investing in undervalued areas.

We chose the road NEVER travelled: a vertical fund investing in pre-seed & seed stage non-US ad tech. And we looked at this untapped opportunity through the analytical lens of seasoned operators.

FPC built one of the largest community investment entities ever conceived. We had no right to - and the odds certainly didn’t favour it - but we did it anyway.

We now have over 250 LPs (and counting) from across our sprawling industry. The idea: to get as many inside the ad tech tent so we all can benefit. The ultimate community fund.

As we reach the business end of Fund 1, we are laser-focused on rewarding that faith and laying the foundations for the next decade of ad tech prosperity that’s open to a larger chunk of the industry.

Giving Corporate Investors Agency Over Their Futures

What we have done with individual investors, we would like to do with corporate investors. Brands, agencies, ad tech and media companies must keep pace in a head-spinning, hyper-evolving sector.

From investing in R&D to reading the industry tea leaves to partnering with bleeding-edge ad tech, staying competitive can be a Herculean task. And as for investing in ad tech, that’s often one board approval too far.

Some manage to do it; most sadly acquiesce to the hyperscalers, outsourcing all commercial and technical autonomy. Nobody gets fired for choosing Google, right? Always a great decision in the very short term - right up until your company becomes a cautionary tale for overdependence and irrelevance.

But it doesn’t need to be thus. What if you could have it all? What if you could access a focused ad tech development team, unbiased market intelligence that actually moves the needle, and exposure to high-growth ad tech businesses?

A New Way To Innovate: What We Are Offering Corporate Investors

Today, FPC is unveiling a new strategy for our corporate partners: packaging the unique capabilities of both FirstPartyCapital and FirstPartyStudio.

Download The One Pager

Our objective with this initiative is to offer a structured, accessible way for brands, agencies, ad tech, and publishers to navigate an increasingly opaque, self-serving ad tech market. We are doing this through three specific mechanisms:

• Technical Execution: Experienced ad tech engineers and product specialists embed directly with the strategic leadership team. Think of it as outsourced R&D, saving on high costs and resource issues.

• Market Intelligence: Corporate partners receive structured quarterly briefings on AI, data and infrastructure shifts, global media buying trends, M&A activity, and regulatory developments. This is the edge you need to stay ahead.

• Strategic Equity Participation: Partners gain structured access to co-invest alongside FirstPartyCapital in category-leading ad tech companies. This lets you bypass the difficult board-level town halls and the awkward balance-sheet discussions.

Empowering The Strategic

What does this mean for the ambitious, forward-looking companies we are looking to work with? Let’s go through how this will benefit the 4 key strategic players:

• Brands

We are focused on in-house brands. Our offering looks to act as a trusted tech partner - from data orchestration to media execution to measurement. Our portfolio of 20+ companies offers a modular tech stack that provides new avenues for innovation for in-house brands looking to deliver performance. We are the ultimate unbiased filter for a fragmented ad tech marketplace.

• Agencies

Agencies are under severe commercial pressure (fee compression, decline in traditional revenue lines, etc.). This is hitting indies particularly hard. We are looking to work with savvy agencies eager to build sustainable capabilities. That could be anything from a bespoke data/ad tech solution or maintaining a cutting-edge profitable principal buying offering. FPC deliberately offers a malleable framework to accommodate the wide-ranging requirements of agencies. Also, this cohort is bankrolling much of ad tech’s success - with zero financial upside. By working with FirstPartyStudio, FPC offers the most efficient way to invest in the fund. No difficult chats with the CFO necessary - the perfect onboarding mechanism.

• Ad tech

Maintaining a development team is expensive. Integrations globally can be overwhelming and resource-heavy. Understanding what comes next, especially from a non-US perspective, can be daunting. Make your life easier by partnering with FPC on R&D, market intelligence (the global view) and investing in cutting-edge ad tech.

• Media

Media is probably the most squeezed in this cohort. Content creators are having to tackle zero traffic and AI macro trends. R&D costs are escalating as publishers explore new growth areas, while traditional revenue declines. Despite the new opportunities, how do you decide what to build and where to allocate R&D budgets? These are existential questions. Our new offering is purposefully built for these scenarios. We offer the full suite of development and market intelligence to help publishers and media companies navigate this new, complicated reality.

We are keen to speak with companies of all shapes and sizes that prioritise innovation and want to stay ahead of the competition. Get in touch if interested: contact@firstpartycapital.com.

Remember: this framework is deliberately flexible. It’s a conversation starter. Every company has its own unique strategic objectives. So, come and talk to us. Outlandish ideas encouraged!

Don't Forget To Read One-Pager

As always, thanks for reading. Have a great ad tech day.

They say necessity is the mother of all invention. Circumstances and environment invariably dictate outcomes. A non-US-based ad tech company starting out today will have a very different trajectory than a US-based one. Different markets. Different funding requirements. Different macroeconomic hurdles to navigate. Different buyers.

This also applies to capital allocators - albeit in a very different way. In this edition of The FPC Newsletter, we discuss the evolution of FirstPartyCapital - and how we operate as a multi-faceted fund.

The FPC Stack

FPC has never just engaged in passive investing. From day one, we have been evolving our investment model. We are very much a fund of one in an ocean of generalists (outside the US).

The opportunity in our vertical is significant; the specialism is finite. That has shaped a lot of our thinking and strategy thus far.

We have travelled a long way since the investment syndicate launched all those years ago. During FPC’s brief but eventful lifetime, we have had to build our own quasi-stack with a different set of capabilities that enables us to invest, position, scale, and make money for founders, LPs, and, of course, ourselves.

We call it The FPC Stack (see graphic below), and we break it into four constituent parts: FirstPartyCapital Fund; FirstPartyStudio; FirstPartyFinance; and FirstPartyCapital M&A. Let’s dig into those parts.

FirstPartyCapital Fund: Where It All Starts

FirstPartyCapital Fund 1 raised over $18 million and invested in 19 startups. We are now onto our second fund, looking to raise £50 million. The focus is still on the seed/pre-seed range, with room for follow-ons if necessary.

The investment thesis, as always, is framed around the vertical in which we operate. Fund 1 was very much about 1PD, signal and infrastructure. Fund 2 is more closely aligned with our ADO (AI, Data and Outcomes) positioning.

Through our investments and unabashed ad tech evangelism (via our newsletter, podcast, conference, etc.), we are changing entrenched views around ad tech investment.

Educating the market about the critical role ad tech plays in powering a $1 trillion ad business is paying off.

We now have a growing and influential group of co-investors that we can bring into our deals - something that we have successfully built out.

The fund continues to be the key part of the overall stack, underpinning everything we do at FPC.

The Studio: The Hub Of Innovation & Utility

FirstPartyStudio was established about a year ago to provide a dedicated technology resource for our portfolio companies and third-party partners. It has since expanded its scope to support incubation launches. We have already completed 4 incubations, with 2 more scheduled for this year.

We will be announcing something pretty innovative for corporates that combines the best bits of FPS and FPC without requiring a direct equity investment. Most brands, agencies, ad tech companies, and media businesses often struggle to secure investment funds.

By combining a commitment with FirstPartyStudio (offsetting expansive Capex), we give them access to the fund. More on this next week (stay tuned).

FirstPartyFinance: Financial Oxygen For Scale

Cash flow management is a huge issue in ad tech. Payment terms (anything up to 180 days) can cripple growth and expansion, jeopardising future raises. Startups are often forced to raise money to cover the float. That is an unacceptable position for us as a fund.

Our primary motivation for FPF: we wanted to provide easy access to the private credit market, helping our portcos scale without diluting. Cash is king. It oxygenates growth - and gives our startups agency over their fundraising timeline.

FirstPartyFinance is also looking to flip the script on financing overall, turning a reactive process into a more proactive one. In short, how can we weaponise it to help our portcos win more business and accelerate revenue growth? We have a few ideas on that one.

Someone recently asked FPC whether we were serious about our FPF business. We are very serious. An announcement outlining a partnership with a big US lender will be made in a few weeks’ time.

FirstPartyCapital M&A: Selling The Ad Tech Dream

The last part of The FPC Stack is our M&A offering. Important to note here that we are not running an M&A shop - and have no interest in competing with seasoned bankers.

The M&A service we offer is exclusively internal; it is available only to portfolio companies with a valuation below $50 million. There is no mandate from FPC either. It is the prerogative of the management teams and boards to work with us.

We know we can sell these sub-50-million companies. We know the buyers. We have the infrastructure. And we possess a very large megaphone to shape the narrative that (fairly) amplifies strategic value.

The FPC Stack keeps evolving. We have the requisite toolkit now to help us build and scale great companies outside the US. It’s an ongoing decades-long process. But the flywheel is starting to spin.

And that’s it for this edition, dear reader. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great ad tech day.

We call it “industrial” ad tech: the wonderful collision of glass, steel, ads and first-party data. More details on that thesis here.

The pod outlines the Vendi “syndicate” investment deal and how to get involved in this funding round.

The FPC Podcast timeline:

00:00 Introduction to Vendi and ‘Industrial’ Ad Tech

03:03 The Intersection of Out of Home and Retail Media

05:58 Vendi’s Unique Business Model and Case Studies

09:00 Insights from the First Party Team

11:53 The Future of Out of Home Advertising

14:58 Consumer Psychology and Brand Engagement

18:02 Scaling Vendi’s Operations

21:01 Potential Acquirers and Market Positioning

Hello readers, in this edition, we will attempt a “Being A John Malcovitch” and try to live vicariously through the eyes of a strategic ad tech acquirer. What exactly are they looking to buy - and why? These are the questions preoccupying the minds of founders and VCs alike. Liquidity is very much top of mind. So let’s dive in - but as ever let’s caveat all this as the opinion of FPC. We generally see everything from a non-US lens.

AI Ad Tech: Is Value In The Service Layer?

Anyone proffering a negative view on AI is typecast as a Luddite. Even holding a middle-of-the-road, pragmatic view on the application of the technology in ad tech is frowned upon.

The issue, though, is that nobody is buying the zeitgeist: AdCP, “agentics” and the AI industry scapes are not enticing buyers.

Maybe it’s a bit too early in the cycle. Maybe it’s the market.

Or maybe just maybe, none of these solutions have any real moats or longevity. Does the world really need another automated media buying tool? Prompt-based planning and buying is a feature - not a defensible solution.

Big tech will own the models, and the models are fast becoming commoditised. Signal remains the only differentiator in this game - a narrative FPC continues to hammer.

Will there be any splashy acquisitions in this congested AI ad tech category? It’s probable but highly unlikely in the short term, given the chunky valuation and the wait-and-see strategy adopted by strategics.

Where M&A could get interesting - in the very short term - is at the service layer. AI has been beneficial to the agency/consulting business. Panicked brands are increasingly leaning on specialist vendors and repositioned incumbents.

From workflow orchestration solutions to custom AI builders, new players are filling a big capability gap. There will definitely be some M&A activity here.

Strategic tuck-ins versus big ticket buys

There is always debate over the value of big acquisitions. Will they ever realise their expected accretive value is a bone of contention? The answers to that can be highly subjective. After all, nobody is going to issue a mea culpa for wasting $400 million on a generic ad network, are they? Of course not.

The number of buyers for anything over $150 million in ad tech is finite. The Goldilocks range remains between $25 and $150 million. Not too cheap. Not too expensive. Just about right to get board approval or avoid the board altogether.

Given the turmoil in public markets, there could be a freeze on larger deals until some form of normalcy returns (whatever that is). FPC is hearing of a few transactions about to be completed - but that’s very much the tail end of the 2025 vintage.

At the other end of the M&A scale, the sub $50 million market is relatively buoyant. We tracked a number of these deals in 2025 - and more are coming. It might not make the trades, but it is generally good for founders and investors.

Good outcomes for founders and investors is very much dependent on a) whether the acquired co was capital efficient and didn’t raise stupid amounts of money and b) whether you got in at a sensible valuation.

FPC is optimised for this type of scenario. We invest early to lock in value and have a significant portion of the portfolio positioned for this outcome. In the long run, these smaller deals (in aggregate) are likely to return more to LPs than the 150 million+ headline grabbers.

Not Cheap - Pure Strategy

The “tuck-in” is often perceived as a cheap opportunistic buying opportunity. It is not. Most big strategics have strict, and often prohibitive, revenue and EBITDA thresholds for M&A processes. The rationale needs to be compelling.

And it often is. Whether it’s global expansion or a unique technology that can accelerate revenue, the motivation for buying is less about the “bargain bucket” and more about the intrinsic strategic value.

Some of the best examples of non-US “tuck-ins” acquisitions, such as Adbrain and ADmantX, have been transformational, adding significant value for their buyers.

Right now, we have a few sub-50 processes in play, and much of the buyers’ calculus centres on expansion and the core tech asset.

Deals are happening in the space, just not the ones you expected. Here is a TL;DR summary for those special watercooler moments with colleagues and midweek pints at the local watering hole.

• Ad tech AI: No real ad tech acquisitions in the short term. Mostly because the tech has no real moat. The action will all be on the service side. New workflow orchestration and custom AI consulting services are gaining traction.

• >$150M: This will be a challenging segment of the market given public-market turmoil and valuation recalibration.

• $25M-$150M Goldilocks range: This will remain the busiest segment of the market.

• Sub-$50M: There will be lots of deals (mostly under-the-radar). The strategic “tuck-ins” are in vogue,

And that’s it for another edition. Have a great ad tech day.

Your LinkedIn feed has doubtless been heaving with ARTF/AdCP chat and press releases this week, given the recent ad tech jamboree in Palm Springs. The prevailing sentiment across the industry is one of befuddlement, as no one has any idea how this will pan out.

The most likely scenario for the “programmatic” open internet is that the buy- and sell-side tech consolidate into a handful of low-take rate, scaled platforms.

Ad Tech Value Investing

These consolidated plays will have open APIs, enabling agencies, brands, publishers, and “feature ad tech” to build on top of them. The agentics (sounds like a 2nd rate Motown band, right?) will be additive, workflow automation for repetitive tasks - ops, curated deal building, etc.

The winners will have very deep moats: unique supply, cheap compute, “ad tech banking” services and exceptionally low take rates. We made one bet, Bedrock Platform, in this media execution segment.

Its raison d’être: not to go head-to-head with these all-conquering platforms, but to build bespoke offerings (a la Beeswax/IPONWEB/early AppNexus) for smart, forward-thinking buyers, and provide bidding capabilities within progressive SSPs looking to compete for demand. Bedrock Platform is very much in a category of its own - more on that at a later date.

Other than Bedrock, our investment thesis remains wholly focused on first-party data solutions, data infrastructure, supply-focused ad nets and PBTs that address the entire $1 trillion ad ecosystem - not just the programmatic subsection.

We call it ad tech value investing: allocating investment to capital-efficient startups that create real utility in overlooked parts of the ad ecosystem.

OOH FTW

One overlooked area that has significant upside for ad tech is OOH. This is a $40 billion ad market and still growing (expected to compound at around 8%-10% until the early-2030s). OOH-related M&A totalled $2 billion+ in 2025. There are active buyers willing to pay a premium. We are so long on the space.

And what’s even more interesting about OOH is its ever-increasing importance for brand-building. As consumer behaviour shifts and the lower funnel collapses (thanks to the rise of chatbots & Q&A search), OOH becomes a requisite go-to for big brands.

Building a successful scaled ad net/ad tech solution in OOH is very possible - as long as you have proprietary supply and a first-party data asset. AI might hollow out the open web and other digital channels; it’s another thing for it to disrupt fixed-screen assets that underpin a $40 billion (and growing) ad business. OOH will play an integral role in a redrawn media landscape.

FPC will make two OOH investments in 2026. Both fit the mould for what FPC considers the perfect mix for success: O&O ad supply and a proprietary data asset.

Utility + Ads = Great Ad Tech Business

The first of these investments will be into a startup called Vendi Tech. Vendi provides automated vending machines to some of the UK’s largest pub, gym, and retail brands.

Did you say vending machine? WTAF is an acceptable answer. But here is where the FPC value investment thesis kicks in - expanding beyond the narrow, myopic view of ad tech.

Vendi produces automated product dispensers and works with brands to distribute physical products to targeted audiences. It then uses this first-party data to power a DOOH offering.

The best ad offerings are utility solutions with adjacent and complementary ad businesses bolted on - think Uber, PayPal, Deliveroo, Instacart et al.

Vendi has nailed the unit economics on its machines, enabling it to make much-needed incremental revenue for partners and a decent margin for itself.

It is the kind of industrial ad tech that makes real money. Steel, glass, products, and ads combine to make all your value-investment ambitions realisable.

This could easily be a scaled global business, carving out a lucrative piece of the OOH market. It’s certainly what Vendi’s partners want to do. This fund raise will help to put that strategy into action.

We are making this round available for individual investors. The deal goes live on our syndicate platform next week. In the meantime, you can express your interest in investing here: https://f7q0l.share-eu1.hsforms.com/2TJW6Bk8QSTCgotsLnHlnCA.

Why We Are Investing

We will be investing from Fund 2 alongside the syndicate (later in the year). To summarise our thinking, here are 7 reasons why we are investing in Vendi:

• Vendi sits at the intersection of retail media and OOH. It is already working with major gym, pub, and retail brands, helping build new incremental revenue streams through its automated vending machines. Its product-dispensing solution enables brands to engage a targeted audience. Layer on top of that a data-driven OOH ad network, and you have a sticky, profitable ad tech play. Once embedded, it’s hard to displace.

• The Vendi Team: Harry Maitland-Titterton, Vendi CEO, has extensive experience in the retail sector. This led him to identify a significant market gap in the automated vending machine space. He launched Vendi in 2023 and has since signed several major retail brands. As the product evolved to a first-party data and OOH solution, Harry surrounded himself with some of the smartest people in ad tech.

• Vendi is primed for scale. The company has nailed the unit economics on its machines and has built its ad stack to help brands reach new audiences. Now its core customers want it to expand into Europe and beyond. Honestly, it is hard not to get excited about Vendi - and the opportunity that lies ahead for Harry and team. This is a proper, moat-heavy industrial ad tech. Steel, glass, product and OOH ads. Ridiculously investable.

• The best companies in ad tech are utility solutions with a margin-heavy and scalable ad business bolted on. Think Uber and PayPal - but for OOH. As with its peers, Vendi’s utility feeds into its advertising offering.

• Vendi is quintessential ad tech value investing. With a unique fixed supply and proprietary party data, Vendi is a business with a higher likelihood of delivering a return to investors.

• From an M&A perspective, the OOH space is buoyant. In 2025, there were over $2 billion in transactions. OOH is a growing sector. In the age of chatbots and Q&A search engines, OOH becomes existential for brand building as the lower funnel collapses into a prompt.

• EIS cover on this deal for UK investors. Tax rebates are available on this raise.

This is a strong investment opportunity to start the year with. More details will be available on the platform soon, including a video interview with Harry and specific investor details. And that’s it for this edition. Have a great ad tech day.

It’s been a mixed week, readers. The positive news first: everyone under 30 is now into Aphex Twin. The bearded Cornish minimalist techno genius is more popular than Taylor Swift. The kids are alright.

On the negative front, the geo-economic landscape remains ugly, with ever-increasing brinkmanship over tariffs and the continued balkanisation of the global economy.

The America-first doctrine is now being aped and aggressively pushed in other large economies. China-first. Europe-first. India-first. Data sovereignty and regional “tech native” strategies are now top of mind for big global brands.

FPC is flagging this because it will have a profound effect on our industry, blindsiding the majority (not FPC, obviously) - more on this in a future issue.

Today, we are going super micro, not macro, getting back in the ops weeds. We have built an investment thesis around first-party data and the underlying infrastructure that segments and activates. We continue to believe strongly in that narrative.

But with a new caveat: if you want to scale this type of business, the signal needs to be omnichannel.

Feature Ad Tech Under Strain

We are currently in a race to the bottom for ad tech middleware. AI is effectively democratising the software layer in ad tech. Claude and vibing are very much in vogue.

The pile of moatless AI ad tech grows by the day. And the hype kindled by ad tech influencers and builders appears highly speculative.

Everyone is joining the ad tech AI party. A billion-dollar run rate with three lads and a laptop is the ultimate flex.

Economic fundamentals still apply, though. Whoever has the demand wins. The problem for ad tech: agencies are not sitting this one out. Most are building their own platforms, making many 3rd-party solutions redundant.

Paul Silver, an ad tech show-business friend and FPC LP, articulates this very challenge for vertical AI in a recent LinkedIn post.

Banking, Supply & Signal

As Paul points out, this will not be an absolute rule. There will be exceptions with a small handful of big winners.

Of course, this is a very subjective take on the post. Buyers will always want access to a unique supply. And the scaled bank-like services (extended payment terms on huge chunks of media spend) offered by big ad tech - that very few can offer.

It’s worth noting that this is a big trend at holdcos - much of the independent agency landscape is still open for business.

You might also (rightly) say ideas are ten a penny and execution is everything. The problem is that the execution part is getting easier.

If this is a tad hyperbolic, then look at the strategies of the holdcos and some of the big indies. All are investing heavily in their own data assets/infrastructure to support models that build customised algorithms and optimise media. All want proprietary signals and O&O supply from 3rd-party ad tech partners.

Signal, The Real Differentiator - But Omnichannel Ready

FPC has been investing heavily in signal since we started the fund. We asserted that buyers would want more signal, not less. And that is panning out now.

Publicis, WPP and Omnicom have made huge bets on AI - and they are hungry for first-party data assets and ID graphs. Going forward, it will be less about the pipes and more about the signal.

Here’s how FPC thinks about the future ad tech/agency media execution relationship (sidestepped the creative piece here):

Signal alone will not be enough. Vendors will need to offer omnichannel capabilities to gain meaningful traction with large buyers. You can read the PBT (Platform-Based Technology) issue for a deeper dive.

TLDR: Walled gardens dominate the media plan; you have to build for buyers who allocate the majority of media budgets to YouTube, Meta, TikTok and Amazon. It’s not anything you don’t already know. For partners and potential acquirers, though, mono-channel won’t cut it - especially if the signal is over-indexed to the open web.

It is an evolution of our SSA narrative from last year; it needed a timely update.

And that’s it from us. Have a great ad tech day.

Hello readers. Welcome to our regular biased view of the trillion-dollar ad business. As you know, we are all about ad tech and martech investment at FPC. We invest. We build. We scale. The goal, of course, is to achieve an outcome and return money to our LPs. We operate in a BIG market. Ad tech powers this trillion-dollar business. That’s correct. But don’t the walled gardens control 80% of that? Correct. And ad tech builds for that? Uhm, sort of.

For all its innovation, ad tech has a huge blind spot - namely, the walled gardens where consumers spend the majority of their free time. There are companies helping agencies and marketers navigate these standalone ecosystems. We are calling them PBTs (Platform-Based Technologies) - essentially native ad tech for YouTube or a TikTok built on the platform’s O&O APIs.

FPC believes it is a massively underserved part of the ad tech market. In this edition, we are talking about the humble PBT - what they are and how they can make you money.

The Legacy Of Open Web Thinking

There was an interesting exchange on a recent episode of Marketecture between Jim Payne and hosts Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi. Jim, a prolific builder of mobile-based ad tech and current CEO at CloudX, joked that Ari and Eric were “open web ad tech guys” - which, to be fair to both, is not really the case.

The awkward banter did provoke a bigger thought in FPC’s scrappy brain: does the industry suffer from some sort of myopia when it comes to building tech? Are we a web-first sector? Most of the standards we have are grounded in the open web. The programmatic ecosystem, for the most part, has been built to monetise open web inventory - and that technology is now being graphed onto other channels with varying degrees of success.

Now that the open web is declining (referral traffic down, changed consumer behaviour, shifting budgets) amid the rise of chatbots and Q&A search engines, a rethink is happening. App, OOH, audio, and CTV will be major focuses for ad tech. But why not walled gardens?

There seems to be an aversion to building for walled gardens; FPC can see why. Nobody wants their destiny controlled by Google (certainly not) or TikTok. Trading RTB for native API integrations requires significant investment and a major mindset shift. Data and measurement are also huge issues. It is one giant, convoluted “black box” that you could argue serves only its master.

Regardless, this walled-garden ad-tech market (PBTs) is an untapped opportunity. Like it or not, walled gardens keep growing in terms of user engagement and ad spend.

For marketers and agencies, walled gardens continue to be difficult to navigate across targeting, measurement, brand safety and inventory curation. Buyers need to do all of this at scale. And they need 3rd parties to fill that capability gap.

The Walled Garden: More Ecosystem Than Supply Partner

The raging hot takes around YouTube’s TV credentials pollute the LinkedIn news feed. Industry leaders and influencers get themselves into such a lather about “the quality” of YouTube inventory. It is such a reductive debate. What’s TV anyway these days?

YouTube is not just a supply of online video/CTV inventory; it is a living, breathing ad ecosystem. Ad spend is expected to reach $45 billion this year, nearly on par with OOH.

Agencies spend big on YouTube. But it remains a messy process, trying to buy and optimise for quality on a platform dominated by garbage content and, increasingly, AI-generated slop. Google wants the money but, in many respects, doesn’t care how it pockets that media spend. Not helpful to buyers.

It is not just the buyside that needs help. Increasingly, top-tier publishers and broadcasters are using YT to distribute their premium content. The problem is that they are not getting premium prices. The YT algo on the platform invariably commoditises premium content, valuing it similarly to UGC.

PBTs like FPC portco, ContxtMedia, are helping pubs increase YT ad yield. Its video metadata solution ingests content at scale to provide better signals, custom inclusion lists, and brand-safe inventory. This is a boring (we love boring) backend company that doesn’t take a position in the media - just supercharges the buying signal so partners can make more money. Buyers want quality and performance; ContxtMedia provides both.

A YouTube PBT Ecosystem Map

There are 3rd-party ad tech vendors making decent money and garnering big valuations by focusing heavily on YouTube - thinking about the likes of Channel Factory and Zefr. Within the YT ecosystem, there are a bunch of specific categories PBTs are building solutions for.

To illustrate the opportunity, FPC has put together a crude visual overview of the YouTube PBT category landscape:

The Investment Rationale

The walled garden penetration is more pronounced outside the US. The further east you go, the more dependent marketers and agencies become on YT/Google/Amazon/Meta/TikTok/Snap.

There are two ways to invest for this: 1) invest in solutions building for omnichannel; and 2) fund platform native ad tech.

You’ll be glad to hear we are doing both. On the first one, we have already made significant bets (cc Lumen, the omnichannel attention company) and have a bunch of incubations that will be backing (startups like MedMerge, a non-US pharma/health targeting solution for walled gardens).

On the native ad tech builds, we are already into the likes of ContxtMedia, and are lining up investment in TikTok and YT solutions.

Having a nuanced view of ad tech is requisite if you want to thrive and survive. FPC has adopted that view from day 1. Remember again, this is not the US. You do not have the luxury of a single deep and liquid ad market that can support an open web investment thesis.

The PBT is a thriving (and very investable) ad tech category - and we are making sure our LPs have decent exposure to this outrageously overlooked segment of the market.

And that’s it, readers. Another TLA (oh, yeah) is born. Have a great ad tech day.