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Brandscreen out of administration as US firm Zenovia steps in saving remaining staff

Australian-based demand side platform Brandscreen has been bought by US firm Zenovia in an “eight digit” deal saving the firm from administration.

Brandscreen

As Mumbrella revealed in January the firm went into administration just after Christmas, after the joint founders Julian Tol and Seth Yates had failed to sell the business – which has one employee left in Singapore – and “bridging finance did not complete”. At the time administrators Jirsch Sutherland said they were looking for a quick sale, after restructuring the business.

On Friday Zenovia, which claims to be the “premier” click fraud reducing exchange, completed a deal to buy the company, having only been alerted about its availability in late January.

Dwight Ringdahl, founder and CTO of Zenovia Exchange, told Mumbrella’s Australia site this morning: “This acquisition gets us a better platform in the Asia market and Australia, and a premium technology offering we can load our offering on top of. 

“We will be looking at keeping everyone on board who has been left by the administrators, I think there are 19 people left in the Sydney office. We have a lot of systems already in place which Brandscreen had been struggling with, so that reduces our cost quite significantly. We want to build those offices back up to what they were.

“We will also be keeping the Brandscreen name. We did a lot of research in market an found a number of premium publishers who were very happy with them, and sad they had gone into administration.”

Founded in January 2012 and based in Atlanta, Ringdahl told Mumbrella Zenovia is the third biggest ad exchange in the world after Google and Ad Nexus, adding the company was putting the finishing touches to a “top 500” supercomputing offering. He added the company looks to combat fraud by stopping bots and bad publishers getting access to the platform, and making sure ad units are visible to consumers before the ads are served.

Jo Gaines, chief revenue officer of Brandscreen said in a statement: “This is a complementary transaction for both companies. Zenovia gains one of ad tech’s most accomplished teams and a proven, innovative platform.

“Brandscreen’s clients will continue to experience the same great customer service and will further benefit by additional access to global supply and the new ability to programmatically buy high-performing viewable media at scale.”

In Singapore, Brandscreen was led by Stu Spiteri as chief executive officer. He is believed to be looking for another position in the ad tech space.

Alex Hayes

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