Advertising platforms were involved in a third (33%) of all global merger and acquisition (M&A) deals done in the ad-tech sector in the first quarter of 2015. This rose from 29 per cent in Q1 from the previous year.
Meanwhile, overall, the number of merger and acquisition deals within the ad-tech sector completed during the first quarter of 2015 declined by almost a quarter year-on-year with 98 deals in total.
According to research released by Results International on global M&A deals , the rate of Ad-tech acquisitions was down on the previous first quarter of the year, which saw 119 deals completed, with this year’s number including Chango and The Rubicon Project, WPP and Comscore, Neilsen and Exelate and NetProspex and Dun & Bradstreet.
Marketing automation businesses deals also rose from eight per cent of the market during Q1 last year to 20 per cent during the same period this year.
The disclosed deal value of the overall number at $1.4bn with 32 for advertising platforms, 20 in marketing automation, 16 for mobile, 14 for social media, nine for e-commerce and seven in video while the top ad-tech and mar-tech sector buyers were WPP with four and two by Hi-Media.
North America was the most active region with 56 deals followed by Western Europe at 18, APAC with 13, UK with five, Eastern Europe with two and South America with one. Africa recorded no AdTech or Martech deals during Q1.
Meanwhile, the number of cross boarder deals was 34 and seven per cent of the overall number were backed by private equity such as; EPiSever and Ektron, Cathay Capital and Smart Ad Server.
All deals worth over $100m were for ad platforms.
Earlier this week, Results International released statistics around Q1 of mergers and acquisitions within the Marcomms sector.
