Goldman Sachs has agreed to invest $325 million in ad measurement and analytics company iSpot.tv, the investment bank said on Wednesday.
iSpot, which measures the effectiveness of TV ads on linear and streaming platforms, was recently named by NBCUniversal as its preferred trading currency for the 2022 Upfront season. The company, which was founded in 2012, generates more than $100 million in annual recurring revenues.
The funding follows Shamrock Capital’s $80 million investment in EDO, an iSpot competitor. Both EDO and iSpot are competing to overtake Nielsen — which was itself just sold to a consortium of private equity firms in a $16 billion deal — as the go-to measurement system used by media companies.
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“We believe iSpot’s industry-leading scale in viewership data and its ability to deliver cross-screen audience and performance measurement in real time uniquely position the company to support the TV advertisement ecosystem in advancing the industry’s measurement standards,” said Joon Park, managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “We look forward to supporting the iSpot team in their exciting journey ahead.”
iSpot recently completed 60 currency pilots with NBCUniversal involving the Olympics, Super Bowl and NBCUniversal’s first quarter inventory. WarnerMedia and Paramount used iSpot in a currency pilot for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Before the Goldman Sachs investment, iSpot had raised $58 million.
“This team has modernized TV measurement and has achieved a lot of groundbreaking innovations for the industry in our first ten years in business,” said Sean Muller, CEO of iSpot. “As we enter our second decade, the investment and support from Goldman Sachs will help fuel the next generation of innovations and accelerate our ability to be the trusted cross-screen currency of choice.”
Goldman Sachs has previously invested in data analytics, software and marketing platforms including Innovid, GumGum and HUMAN.
iSpot said it will use the investment to ramp up its growth, including in the sales department and with its engineering and product development.
