Amobee completes Videology acquisition

Amobee, the adtech platform belonging to Singtel, announced that it has completed its acquisition of New York-based Videology, first announced in July, for a final purchase price of US$101.2 million.  

In addition, Amobee has made the following appointments:

• Scott Ferber, the founder, chairman and CEO of Videology, joins as chief innovation officer.
• Domenic Venuto, most recently GM of IBM Watson’s consumer division and Watson Advertising, joins as chief operating officer.
• Erica Golden, previously head of global talent development at Apple, joins as chief people officer.

Amobee said the acqusition will advance its offering for connected TV and digital video with "sophisticated, data-driven, linear-TV planning tools, premium inventory partnerships and activation opportunities for clients worldwide". The addition of Videology also allows Amobee to combine TV, social and digital in a single platform, which it said is a point of differentiation versus other demand-side platforms.

“The successful acquisition of Videology’s assets accelerates the build out of our digital marketing business and expansion of its footprint across Asia Pacific," said Samba Natarajan, CEO of Singtel’s Group Digital Life. "This creates further differentiation for Amobee’s digital marketing platform and enhances Amobee’s competitiveness in the rapidly converging market of TV and digital video advertising.”

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Ferber has more than 20 years of experience and is considered a pioneer in digital advertising. Prior to founding Videology, he co-founded Advertising.com, which was acquired by AOL. He is based in Baltimore.

New York-based Venuto, a native of Australia, spent the last three years at IBM Watson, where he was responsible for leading the company’s emerging weather products, as well as building location-based products, capabilities, activation, and analytics. Prior to IBM, he was global president of data, technology and partnerships for Publicis Groupe-owned VivaKi. He has also served with Razorfish and Arthur Andersen earlier in his career.  

Golden is an executive coach, organisational-development consultant and behavioural scientist who spent the last 13 years at Apple. She will be based in San Diego, Amobee's US headquarters.

"No sector understands consumers the way telcos do," Venuto said. "With the backing of Singtel, Amobee is poised to continue to grow its global footprint and further establish itself as one of the top digital advertising players in the world."

Ferber said joining forces with Amobee is "the best path forward for Videology", enabling a seamless transition for its customers, who can now benefit from Amobee’s comprehensive marketing platform. Videology received more than $200 million in capital during its existence and enjoyed a close relationship with GroupM, but struggled in the last few years, notably after Google pulled all its inventory from the exchange in 2015. Videology filed for bankruptcy protection in May.

“The industry is only in the early-stages of the TV and video transformation that we were built to power, and it will take resources, capital and time to help transform a market as large as TV,” Ferber said at the time. 

Among the other Videology employees joining Amobee are MDs Kenneth Pao (APAC) and Chris Mooney (ANZ).