IAS acquires CTV platform Publica for $220 million

Integral Ad Science (IAS) has acquired Publica, a connected TV advertising platform, in a cash and stock transaction valued at $220 million. With this acquisition, IAS is accelerating its strategy in this segment, to help publishers better monetise their video programming across CTV devices, while building new tools to provide advertisers with transparency into the quality of this inventory.

Publica delivers over three billion ads on CTV every month. Publica co-founder and CEO, Ben Antier, now will report to IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider. The Publica brand will become part of IAS’ product portfolio.

eMarketer estimates that advertisers will invest over $13.4 billion into CTV this year, growing to surpass $24.7 billion by 2024. Publica connects supply-side platforms to unique CTV inventory, and helps increase publisher yield. Through the acquisition, IAS’s CTV offerings will now include Publica’s unified auction, over-the-top (OTT) header bidding for programmatic buying, audience management, campaign management, server-side ad insertion (SSAI), ad pod automation, and advanced analytics.

This acquisition expands IAS’s current CTV capabilities, which include the industry's first CTV verification solution for global invalid traffic (IVT) and viewability across programmatic and direct buying on all apps and providers. IAS plans to introduce a brand safety and suitability solution for CTV advertisers and publishers in the coming months, bolstered by Publica’s existing platform and CTV content data.

“Advanced data and technology will fuel the future of addressable CTV advertising," says Utzschneider, CEO, IAS. "Now video publishers can increase their revenue, and in the future we will help advertisers with a trusted way to measure the results of their growing CTV budgets."

(This article first appeared on CampaignAsia.com)