Precise TV co-CEO's Nadav Shmuel and Christian Dankl.
LDC, the private equity investor which is part of Lloyds Banking Group, has made a £21m ($41m AUD) minority investment in contextual video adtech platform Precise TV to support its international expansion.
The platform leverages a combination of proprietary machine learning models to connect brands and agencies across YouTube, Shorts, Facebook, TikTok, connected TV and mobile gaming, aiming to drive lower funnel conversions for advertisers looking to limit media wastage.
Its platform uses AI to analyse millions of online videos, licensed data sources and its own proprietary panel data to build contextualised advertising campaigns for its clients, which includes global business and consumer brands such as LEGO, Moose Toys, Warner Bros, Paramount, Breville, Salesforce and ASICS.
Following LDC’s investment, the business plans to continue to build its AI capabilities and scale its presence in the US, which currently accounts for more than half of revenue, as well as diversifying further into other markets, such as gaming.
Precise TV was founded in 2015 and operates globally through its teams in London, Los Angeles and New York, as well as its offices in Sydney and Salzburg, Austria.
The transaction was led by David Andrews, Dan Gluckman and Eliza Tracey in LDC’s London office. Andrews and Gluckman will both join the board as non-executive directors, alongside former Google executive Jen Thompson, who joins as a board advisor and brings more than 18 years’ experience.
Precise TV co-CEO Nadav Shmuel said this is an important milestone for the business.
"Since we founded the company almost a decade ago, we’ve focused on building the best contextualised advertising tech stack in the market for our clients," said Shmuel.
'With LDC’s support, we can continue investing to stay ahead of the curve whilst taking our proposition to a wider market, with a particular focus on the US where we see a significant growth opportunity.
“LDC’s track record in backing technology and media businesses really stood out for us, and we’ve already built an excellent relationship with David, Dan, Eliza and the team at LDC. They clearly understand the scale of the opportunity available to us and we can’t wait to get started.”
LDC's Andrews said in under 10 years, the entire management team at Precise TV have built a highly distinctive and scalable proposition in the adtech market which has underpinned the firm’s strong growth to date.
"Their entrepreneurialism and ambition is impressive and just the type of management team we love to back. With demand for contextualised advertising solutions set to continue growing, this is the perfect time to invest for scale," he said.
In the last decade, LDC has invested £405m into businesses across sub-sectors from film, TV and broadcast to advertising, PR, marketing, events and gaming. This includes backing full-service digital marketing company Croud in 2019 to help fund its US expansion, helping the firm grow its US business to a third of revenues within its five-year partnership.
LDC was advised by JEGI CLARITY (corporate finance), Squire Patton Boggs (legal), BDO (financial and tax due diligence), PwC Strategy& (commercial due diligence) and EY (tax).
Precise TV was advised by SI Partners (corporate finance) and Keystone Law (legal).
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