By Seb Joseph and Ronan Shields • December 5, 2024 •
Ivy Liu
The curation buzz is no longer just talk — it’s shaping the market, especially in M&A. Case in point: Experian snapping up Audigent.
The data broker announced the deal yesterday, but stayed tight-lipped on the price. A former Audigent insider, however, pegs the valuation at somewhere between $200 million and $250 million. This estimate was backed by several other sources, citing knowledge of Audigent’s business. Experian, for its part, declined to comment on the financials.
It’s likely that there were no third-party bankers involved, given the pair have had a formal relationship since 2022; plus, the estimated price tag (as cited above) would likely mean that Experian’s corporate development team would not have to seek board approval to close the deal. Formal negotiations on a sale are understood to have taken place since early fall 2024.
One source with knowledge of M&A deals told Digiday that such acquisitions are closed in the run-up to the end of the calendar year, as corporate development teams are often faced with a ‘use it, or lose it’ scenario.
For Experian, the deal is a strategic trifecta: enhanced data, sharper identity solutions and a front-row seat in the booming curation market. Audigent, a leader in this space, specializes in a model that shifts targeting — and margins — from the buy-side to the supply-side of ad tech, making it a potentially pivotal player in reshaping ad economics of the market. Experian will now be at the forefront of that.
“We view Audigent as a natural extension of our existing marketing data and identity capabilities,” a spokesperson told Digiday in an emailed statement. “The addition of Audigent’s combined first-party publisher data and inventory network, as well as its sell-side distribution, empowers us to build on our holistic identity activation technology.”
That last point could prove critical as the decline of third-party cookies makes DSP-based targeting less effective. With fewer cookies to rely on, marketers are chasing alternative signals and fresh partnerships, giving Experian’s new foothold even more weight.
Terence Kawaja, CEO of LUMA Partners, noted how the term “curation” is a disputed one in the sector, i.e., how many could argue that it has been implemented by ad networks, DSPs, and SSPs for years, adding that Experian’s latest purchase could bring it into rivalry with the likes of The Trade Desk.
“The fact Experian is buying a player that packages media is interesting,” he said, observing how outfits in the ad verification space have similarly made moves into the media activation space in a bid to further buoy their monetization efforts.
Take, for example, DoubleVerify’s purchase of SciBids, a deal LUMA helped broker; such moves are necessary to stay ahead of the pack. “It’s hard to stay neutral,” Kawaja added.
Audigent’s leadership had been seeking an exit for some time, according to several sources, all of whom requested anonymity given the sensitive nature of negotiations, with the company, founded in 2015, acknowledged as one of the leading lights in the curation space. Digiday first caught wind of sale discussions back in September.
However, the seeds of this deal were planted much earlier — in 2022. When Experian and Audigent began collaborating. Audigent had integrated Experian’s identity and audience data into its SmartPMP private marketplaces, setting the stage for a deepr partnership.
“Experian and Audigent have had a strong working relationship, bringing several innovations to market, said the Experian spokesperson.”The combination of Experian’s demand-side capabilities and Audigent’s sell-side distribution offers clients an end-to-end approach that empowers marketers and agencies to deliver targeted advertisements based on consumer preferences.”
Industry consultant Lulu Phongmany said the transaction is a natural evolution of the pair’s pre-existing commercial relationship and that the union was unlikely to result in Audigent pulling back from its current relationships with publishers.
“They [Experian] have been in market, building out their revenue source from data for a long time now,” she said, comparing the pair’s pre-existing relationship to, “living together before they get married.”
She added, “Audigent adds the technology piece that they did not have before, so now they [Experian] don’t have to build because they have the actual data, and a lot of data that people rely on; this [sale] helps to expand all of that.”
This deal might be the opening act, with curation set to fuel ad tech innovation — and unlock new commercial opportunities — in the coming year. Major players like Google, Coca-Cola and GroupM have already made curation a key focus. And companies that align with this demand are bound to catch the eye of strategic buyers and private equity investors to capitalize on the trend.
More broadly, the deal is another sign of momentum gathering around so-called “rationalization” deals aimed at consolidating or expanding into new markets.
For now, Audigent will operate as a standalone brand, according to an Experian spokesperson. Over time, the company plans to assess how best to integrate it into its broader ad tech stack.
https://digiday.com/?p=562360
