Jan 11, 2017
Edison Partners Exits Operative Media, Inc.
Leader in Online Advertising Operations Acquired by SintecMedia
PRINCETON, NJ – January 11, 2017 -- Edison Partners today announced the closing of the sale of New York City-based Operative Media, Inc. to SintecMedia. The acquisition valued Operative at nearly $200M which generated more than 5X return for Edison Partners.
Operative, the global leader in digital advertising business management solutions for major media companies, offers software and services to help publishers, agencies, networks, and broadcasters simplify the business of advertising. Since Edison’s initial investment in the company, Operative grew revenue by more than 10X and added more than 250 customers, including a majority of the top 50 digital and television publishers.
“Operative has developed a truly converged digital advertising solution that publishers need to effectively increase revenue and streamline operations across platforms. The Company’s solutions are easy to deploy and scale as customers grow, which is an integral part of the Operative’s success in growing their customer base,” said Chris Sugden, Edison Managing Partner and Operative board member. “We’re confident Operative will continue to thrive as an integral part of SintecMedia’s comprehensive offering.”
“Over the last decade, Edison’s support and guidance have been essential in helping us build Operative.One™, the first solution allowing publishers to connect supply-side and demand-side technologies to sell, execute, and bill through a single system,” said Lorne Brown, CEO of Operative. “It has been an extraordinary journey, and we are now perfectly positioned to help SintecMedia reach its goal of bringing TV and digital ad management together to allow media companies to take more effective long-term strategic control of their businesses.”
Edison Partners has financed and guided more than 200 private companies, including 29 Marketing Technology companies, which focuses on applications and technology solutions that sell into the CMO suite. Notable exits include ACT! (Sage), Cadient (Cognizant), Dendrite (Cegedim), Vocus, and NetProspex (Dun & Bradstreet). Current investments include: Arkadium, Fishbowl, iQ media, ItemMaster, Jornaya, LookBookHQ, Magnetic, MediaBrix, Motionsoft, Pixability, RealMatch, Salsa Labs, Terminus, Triplelift, and Wyng.
About Operative
Since 2001, Operative Media, Inc. has developed software and services that help publishers, agencies, and networks simplify the business of advertising. Media companies rely on Operative to sell, traffic, and bill premium ad inventory, increasing revenue and decreasing overhead. Operative's client base, which controls over 20 percent of the global ad market, includes NBCUniversal, Meredith, Refinery29, Wall Street Journal, Comcast, iHeartMedia, BuzzFeed, VICE Media, Vox, and Cox. For more information, visit www.operative.com.
About Edison
For 30 years, Edison Partners has been helping CEOs and their executive teams navigate the entrepreneurial journey and build successful companies. Through the unique combination of expansion capital and the Edison Edge platform, consisting of strategic advisory, the Edison Director Network, and executive education, Edison employs a holistic approach to nurturing invention and creating value for growth stage businesses ($5 to $20 million in revenue) in financial technology, healthcare IT, enterprise IT, and marketing technology industries. Edison investment objectives also include: buyouts, recapitalizations, spinouts and secondary stock purchases.
Edison’s active portfolio has created aggregate market value exceeding $5 billion. Its long-tenured team based in Princeton, NJ manages more than $1 billion in assets throughout the eastern United States.
