St. Louis advertising technology startup Advocado has expanded with the acquisition of a division of global data analytics and consulting firm Kantar.
Advocado said Wednesday it has purchased Kantar BVS, which provides technology to help brands measure the reach and impact of their advertisements. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2017, Advocado has developed a cross-media data management technology platform used by brands, media companies and advertising agencies and designed to boost advertising performance. It is led by its co-founders, CEO Brian Handrigan and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Linihan.
Advocado acquired Kantar BVS from Kantar, a global data and consulting company based in London. Advocado had previously licensed Kantar BVS' technology and said that its decision to acquire it will help enhance its customers' ability to understand the performance of their advertisements.
“By combining our next-gen attribution algorithm with the BVS ad detection data, first-party web tracking tag and other sources, our customers will benefit from an accurate, independent assessment of performance across broadcast TV, radio and digital platforms like CTV (connected TV) & streaming audio," said Handrigan.
In addition to providing the opportunity to strengthen its data management platform, Handrigan said the deal offers access to an expanded customer base that will be able to tap into Advocado's wider technology offering.
“Our existing customers will benefit from network, media and platform expansion as well as ongoing cross organization innovation,” said Pete Rumpel, executive vice president of Kantar Media, North America.
Through the acquisition, seven employees of Kantar BVS will join Advocado, bringing the startup's total workforce to about 25 employees.
Prior to Wednesday's announcement, Advocado said Nov. 23 it acquired 47 patents from VEIL Interactive Technologies, an affiliate of Koplar Interactive Systems International. Through that deal, Advocado acquired the VEIL watermarking technology, which it has licensed for five years and says is used to monitor when advertisements air. Linihan said Advocado's acquisition will allow it to increase "the precision and speed at which VEIL can be applied, and across a greater number of use cases." Advocado said Kantar BVS has licensed VEIL's watermaking technology for its own technology.
