Azerion Acquires International Digital Ad Business Hybrid Theory

Digital entertainment and media advertising platform Azerion continues its merger and acquisitions activity with the purchase of programmatic agency and trading desk Hybrid Theory, expanding its footprint across the U.S. and broader APAC market. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Hybrid Theory, run by chief executive Patrick Johnson, has worked with clients including Lexus, Marks & Spencer, Tui and Europcar and has offices across six countries including the U.K., Hong Kong, Australia, the U.S., Spain and Singapore. It also claims to have generated gross revenue of $18.6 million (£15.6 million) in 2021, according to a press release.

According to Luma Partners’ last market report for the second quarter of the year, ad tech merger and acquisition activity was slowing. However, with uncertain economic conditions, consolidation of marketing and ad tech companies is likely, and Azerion has continued to grow its scale through a number of deals and media partnerships across the gaming and digital media sectors.

In the deal, Netherlands-headquartered Azerion will integrate Hybrid Theory’s custom-built technology that it claims “connects intelligence with human nuance, understanding and creativity” to heighten advertising engagement. The company has not returned a request for comment regarding changes to headcount.

Azerion currently works with over 19,000 gaming titles and the world’s largest digital media platforms such as eBay, Bauer Media Group, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Hearst and Italia Online. The company claims to have three pillars to its business to offer brands and publishers; content, technology and advertising. 

Patrick Johnson explained that joining the Azerion Group would help achieve greater scale for Hybrid Theory. 

“Hybrid Theory’s unique capabilities in data now have the addition of proprietary first-party data at scale, which coupled with Azerion’s branding capabilities provide an unparalleled linkage with our performance heritage,” he added.

This is the latest in a spree of deals from Azerion over the last two years. Its number of acquisitions is in the double figures. At the end of October, it also announced the acquisition of sales house and publisher technology company [M]media, which offers display, video and native advertising capabilities. Earlier this month, Azerion partnered with Right Thing Media in Australia to improve its social media advertising service.

Last October, Azerian acquired Inskin and Pub Galaxy which helped strengthen its European digital advertising approach.

Umut Akpinar, co-CEO of Azerion, said that the acquisition of Hybrid Theory would provide Azerion with “enhanced skills and capabilities to manage advertiser campaign performance.”

He added: “We are confident that Hybrid Theory’s market-leading data capabilities will provide Azerion with the best-in-class technology to power better and smarter data-driven advertising potential to our advertisers and publishers.”