Yahoo has scooped up video ad platform BrightRoll for $640M in cash. BrightRoll will continue to operate independently “with Yahoo’s additional investment and global support.” The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.
The acquisition is aimed at boosting Yahoo’s position in digital advertising market. Mayer said that BrightRoll is expected to generate more than $100 million in net revenue this year. She also stated that video is one of the four core pillars of Yahoo’s business strategy, alongside mobile, social, and native advertising.
“Video is display 2.0…We say that video is display 2.0 because we believe it can reinvent and replace the branded banner advertisement. Video, along with mobile, social, and native, represents a new format of online advertising that has the potential to help us transform and modernize Yahoo’s display business and return it to growth.”
posted Marissa Mayer on a company blog post.
Founded in 2006, BrightRoll specializes in programmatic advertising, which helps automate the buying of ads and claims to receive 2 billion ad requests each day.