Get Lumen Before It's Gone; Fragmentation Is Inevitable; And An Up Week For Public Ad Tech
Lumen Deal Live On Platform. Allocation Nearly Gone (Only 30% Remaining)
The Lumen deal has been live on the platform since Wednesday. 70% of the allocation has already gone. Interest is high.
And so it should be. Lumen will be the category winner in attention that underpins the open web and walled gardens - becoming the de facto omni-channel attention layer
Only this week Pinterest partnered with Dentsu to launch a bespoke solution for brands. Attention will be a big part of the new initiative as brands look to maximise ROI on Pinterest ad spend.
Guess who is powering the attention part? That’s right, readers, Lumen.
Use the link below to access the syndicate deal:
https://investors.firstpartycapital.com/deal/detail/abbf8fe2-da7b-4a22-b70a-33cd38bc18a2
Details on the platform include: in-depth video interview with the founders; technology overview; growth forecasts; and the eventual path to a liquidity event.
Here is a top line of why FirstPartyCapital invested:
Category: The post-privacy attention-based measurement and targeting to rule them all.
Financial performance: The company expects to grow revenue 200% y-o-y; specific details are available on the platform.
Valuation: Attractive valuation.
EIS tax relief: Lumen has received advanced assurance that it will qualify for an extension to the initial EIS period by being a "knowledge intensive" company. Therefore UK taxpayers will benefit from EIS relief on their investment.
Team: Mike Follett, and the Lumen Research team, have been pioneering the use of attention measurement in advertising for 8 years. Ezra Pierce and the team at Avocet, are some of the brightest minds in ad tech. The merger of these two teams has created a category winner that has the team and tech to scale attention.
Exit potential: Big ad tech and tech in the mix.
Get that last remaining 30%.
Fragmentation Is Inevitable
Marketers are starting to plan for a world forever changed by privacy and id/cookie deprecation. Ronan Shields talks about this changing strategy in his piece on Digiday this week.
Fragmentation has arrived. And it will affect everything. Never has there been a better time to build a company. So many problems. So many opportunities.
But it is not going to be an easy road for most who have built their businesses around the ubiquity of tracking cookies and ids:
Many international marketing outfits are moving from “monolithic tech stacks to multi-platform ecosystems.
This is oftentimes governed by local necessities — for instance, the legal requirements in one market may practically mean it’s best to use a particular piece of technology in that one geography only.
Although, such an approach can be awkward, not to mention expensive which often makes it difficult to demonstrate ROI, particularly as trade orgs are challenged with establishing consensus on tech standards.
A combination of signal loss and the rise of localised walled gardens in markets outside the US has created a measurement and targeting nightmare for those built off a dying legacy system.
FPC’s advice to the industry: stop whinging, get building and start solving real world problems.
Ad Tech Stocks: Reasons To Be Cheerful, 1, 2, 3
It’s been a decent week for public ad tech stocks. But then that wouldn’t be hard after a horrendous couple of months for tech stocks in general.
So, reasons to be cheerful, 1,2,3:
IAS, making ad verification great again: IAS total revenue for 2022 was $408.3 million, a 26% increase compared to $323.5 million in the prior year. The quarter was solid too, having increased revenue by 15%.
Zeta still building towards $1 billion in revenue: The company grew its 2022 revenue to $591 million. And posted $175 million for Q4. All up y-o-y.
Pubmatic, the SSP continues to grow nicely: Pubmatic reported total 2022 revenue was $256.4 million, up 13% year over year. And as the SSP landscape begins to consolidate, it sees itself in a strong position to grow sell-side market share.
And on that cheery note, readers, have a great weekend.