FPC Is Global Access & More; Picnic Transparency Event; And World-Class Networking At Ad Week NYC
Strategic Investors: FPC Is Global Access & More
We are currently in the midst of raising £50 million for our second fund. It is a slight departure (not too much) from Fund 1 in terms of allocation size and the breadth of our ambitions. The investment thesis remains the same - albeit with a slight tweak.
A significant portion of the funding will come from strategic investors. Index Exchange has already committed a considerable chunk.
You can get an overview of why Andrew Caslale and team invested millions into our fund here: https://www.exchangewire.com/video-interviews/index-exchanges-andrew-casale-on-the-ad-tech-investment-landscape/.
The primary reason we are attracting more strategic investors to Fund 2 is our global access/view of the ad tech world. This is not an assumption; this is what we have been told.
FPC effectively sees everything from a deal flow and global industry trend perspective, leveraging its insider knowledge, portfolio partnerships, profile and media assets.
This insight is crucial for any ad tech company with ambitions to grow outside the US. Where to invest and who to buy are requisite considerations.
No corp dev team can cover it all. They need help navigating this multi-trillion-dollar market. An investment in FPC Fund 2 covers that global blind spot.
Underpinning all of this is the unique infrastructure layer we have built to fund and scale our portfolio companies.
We refer to it as the Holy Trinity of ad tech scale, comprising FirstPartyCapital, FirstPartyStudio, and, finally, FirstPartyFinance.
FPC vets and funds early-stage ad tech and martech companies with the potential to solve the big industry problems and own their respective categories.
FPS helps incubate new ad tech solutions and existing portfolio companies with development and builds.
And FPF is the financial ballast that holds all this together. Financing is literally the single biggest problem in this industry.
Payment terms from agencies and brands are out of control, stretching the startups' P&L to the breaking point.
It gives big ad tech a competitive moat. As Paul Silver remarked of late: “your float is your moat”. FPF is attempting to level the financial playing field.
Someone at our recent MadTechMoney event asked if we were serious about FirstPartyFinance. Our reply: We are deadly serious.
Given the dearth of specialist lenders, we see the issue of debt financing as existential.
FPF already has a healthy pipeline of business and is backed by a significant US lender (details to be announced soon), with several global family offices interested in participating in our debt financing deals.
Incidentally, anyone interested in using the FPF services can get information here: https://firstpartyfinance.com/#contact.
It has taken years to bring all this together, and we are now going to see it all converge to fund, build, and scale the best ad tech businesses in the industry.
The US remains the focus for most, but the non-US market in aggregate presents a much bigger opportunity - and that is only going to grow (insert tariffs, technology shifts and demographics here).
The only way you're going to make sense of it all is to work with FPC. Strategics, let’s chat.
Picnic Hosts Inventory Talks Event
Picnic is one of the more interesting companies in our portfolio at the moment, having evolved from a specialist rich media vendor to a metadata solution provider, competing directly with the likes of Sincera.
Quality signal is the name of the game now for Picnic, and the company is certainly blazing a trail in that category.
The company will host a London-based morning event on Thursday, September 25, on the very subject of quality. It will feature a strong lineup of speakers, and space is limited.
Details on Inventory Talks can be found here: https://info.picnic.io/inventory-talks-25.
FPC Is Bringing Back Its Advertising Week NYC Networking Event - Join Us
After last year’s triumphant networking event at Advertising Week, we are once again looking to bring the great and good of ad tech together.
Last year, we hosted the FPC get-together in a Chelsea bar owned by fund LP Ben Barokas for over five hours. Most of ad tech who made the pilgrimage to New York drifted in and out. Conversations were had. Deals were done. People left happy,
We will be hosting drinks on Thursday, October 9, from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. EDT at a well-known ad tech bar in midtown, conveniently located near the Advertising Week venue.
Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/firstpartycapital-nyc-happy-hour-tickets-1581824482609?aff=oddtdtcreator.
Look forward to seeing you in NYC. Have a great ad tech day/weekend.