Exclusive: Equativ Is Acquiring Sharethrough to Compete Among Undifferentiated SSPs

Equativ, a supply-side platform headquartered in Paris and New York, is acquiring Sharethrough, another SSP with a strong North American presence and a specialty in native advertising.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the combined net recurring revenue of the two companies will be above $200 million. The deal will be funded through capital from Equativ’s majority owner, private equity firm Bridgepoint, which bought its stake in the company in February 2023 for a deal worth around $370 million, Business Insider reported at the time.

Business Insider previously reported on talks of the deal in April.

Two other private equity firms, Capital Croissance and Adelie Capital, are contributing financing, along with debt from investment firm Alcentra. Sharethrough’s co-founders are also rolling over 50% of their equity into the new company, said JF Cote, Sharethrough’s CEO.

Equativ is aiming to become a top three supply side platform and compete with large publicly traded players like Magnite and PubMatic, as buyers are increasingly working with a narrower set of ad-tech partners.

The thesis of the deal is based on the relatively little overlap between the two SSPs businesses, said Equaitv CEO Arnaud Créput. 40% of Equativ’s business is U.S.-based, while another 40% is based in the European Union and the remaining 20% is in Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa and Asian Pacific regions.

Sharethrough, by contrast, has most of its business in North America, and its clients include tier-one agencies, holding companies and Fortune 1000 brands, while Equativ’s clients are mostly independent agencies and direct advertisers.

Additionally, Sharethrough works with tier-one U.S. publishers and its revenue is equally split across display, native and video while Equativ’s business is 60% display, 25% online video and 15% connected television.

“What matters when you merge two SSPs is to get the minimum overlap you can because it’s potentially negative synergies,” Créput told ADWEEK. “You have access to the same inventory, talking to the same buyers and it’s not one plus one equals three, or even two, sometimes it can be one plus one equals 1.8.”

Equativ can avoid this fate by acquiring Sharethrough, an SSP with which overlap is more minimal. The deal is reflective of an industry-wide rejection of working with too many SSPs, and toward supply path optimization, minimizing the hops between buyer and seller.

“Sharethrough is good where Equativ is weak,” Créput said. “And Sharethrough is weaker where Equativ is very strong.”

Getting to a deal

Discussions between the two companies began three years ago after Sharethrough postponed a planned initial public offering in November 2021 as frothy market conditions turned less fortuitous. It took Bridgepoint investing in Equativ for the deal to become a reality.

“The tipping point was about finding the right investor, who believes in the vision, who believes in building a global tech champion,” Cote said. “Finally, we were able to satisfy all our shareholders with a vision and could combine the two companies, powered by Bridgepoint.”

In those three years, Equativ, which was formally known as Smart AdServer, rebranded, acquired server-side ad dynamic insertion abilities through an acquisition of Nowtilus, received investment from Bridgepoint and struck a partnership and investment from telecom giant and T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom.

Through these moves, Equativ, which also contains buying capabilities through a DSP acquisition, has tripled in size in the past three years.

The combined companies will have 720 employees, of which Sharethrough will contribute around 160. The organizations will be merged internally by 2025, though the merging of the tech platforms will likely take around 18 months to two years, Créput said.

It’s smart for Equativ to acquire Sharethrough to deepen its presence in the U.S. market, as an acquisition is a quicker way to build than hiring, said Ana Milicevic, co-founder of programmatic consultancy Sparrow Advisors. But stealing business from the biggest SSPs will be a larger challenge, she said.

“What’s unique about the new company and why would a buyer choose to spend there as opposed to with PubMatic and Magnite?” Milicevic said on the question the company will need to address with clients. “With the degree of automation in the programmatic ecosystem, I don’t know how much you can differentiate on customer experience.”