ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space. In this week’s edition: Neal Richter joins Rakuten Marketing as CTO; Verve acquires German push-marketing company matchinguu; BillFront announces financing facility for Fyber; Forward3D launches in Dubai; and ADYOULIKE releases 'Native Creative 2.0'.

Neal Richter joins Rakuten Marketing as CTO

Neal Richter, CTO, Rakuten Marketing

Ad tech pioneer, veteran, and ex-Rubicon CTO Dr. Neal Richter has been appointed as the new CTO of Rakuten Marketing, the marketing subsidiary of Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce behemoth.

A man with a large stake in the development of the future of programmatic, Richter helped pioneer the OpenRTB standard and the new IAB Tech Lab initiative to spell the end of domain spoofing, ads.txt. As well as being known in his role as CTO of Rubicon Project, which he held for seven years, Richter also serves as technical advisor for ad tech platforms such as Metamarkets.

For those who found Richter’s latest move surprising, given his position at the top table of ad tech and programmatic, Richter confirms in an interview with AdExchanger that he was looking for a company with ‘some large engineering problems to go after’: “My background has been at two large companies that were fairly acquisitive, so I’m familiar with how you integrate disparate engineering teams and create common objectives for what the technology needs to evolve to be.”

Richter wants to bring his technical skills in the world of engineering, programming, machine learning, and AI into e-commerce, believing this is where the future of e-commerce lies. An interesting move and one that will be watched intently to see how Richter makes his mark.

Verve acquires German push-marketing company matchinguu

Location-based marketing platform, Verve, expands its footprint across Europe, with the acquisition of matchinguu for an undisclosed sum. The German company, with its proximity-based push and in-app notification product, will be integrated into the Verve Velocity platform to enable Verve’s clients to expand reach across European audiences.

matchinguu commands a 25% penetration rate of the German smartphone market, allowing for integration of Verve’s software development kit (SDK) into major apps across Germany, enabling clients to deliver richer and more engaging mobile advertising based on real-time consumer behaviour, according to the press release. The New York-headquartered Verve opens its first UK office in 2016 and is committed to further expanding its reach across Europe.

Ian James, general manager international, Verve, said of the acquisition: “[It] came naturally, thanks to the complementary technologies and both parties having similar missions: enabling great storytelling through location-powered data. We are opening the doors to Germany's foremost push technology; working together will make our offering even stronger for our clients and bring Verve firmly into the heart of Europe. Consumers demand relevance and engagement that is as seamless as possible, and this acquisition will empower us to deliver this more than ever."

BillFront announces financing facility arrangement for Fyber

BillFront, the technology-enabled finance provider for digital media companies, has announced a successful arrangement of a USD$7.9m (£6.1m) financing facility for German ad tech platform, Fyber.

The facility, which has been made available through BillFront’s partner bank in Germany, solarisBank, will allow Fyber to scale operations globally and capitalise on the strong growth within the programmatic and RTB advertising markets, according to the press release.

The deal with Fyber comes after BillFront, founded in Germany and headquartered in London, raised USD$33m (£25.3m) in series A funding in December 2016.

Andreas Bodzcek, CEO of cross-device platform Fyber said: “BillFront’s strong understanding of the ad tech sector and the fundamentals of our business helped us to quickly come to an agreement. We were looking for a flexible and scalable solution that could handle our international invoices, without slowing down or creating additional work for our finance department. With BillFront, we feel that we have found the right partner to support our ambitious growth plans.”

Christopher Vogt, co-founder of BillFront, said: “We are excited to be partnering with Fyber and solarisBank. With Fyber, we are adding a marquee client to our portfolio, and our cooperation with solarisBank will allow us to actively target and onboard clients in Germany, a market that is strategically important for us, given the growth that the German ad tech scene is experiencing.”

The trend of ad tech firms using technology-enabled finance solutions as interim providers of working capital is a growing one, with businesses shunning the more common routes of debt and equity financing in favour of maintaining continued business control.

Forward3D announces new Dubai office

Independent digital performance agency Forward3D has announced it is opening a new office in Dubai to cater for the burgeoning Middle Eastern digital market.

With the Middle Eastern market the fastest growing in the world, Forward3D spotted an opportunity to help the region as it continues its transition from traditional to digital media.

According to the press release, the Middle East is the fastest growing region in the world, with online shopping growing by 1500% over the past decade, and with Google Shopping also having recently being launched in the region, although it remains to be seen whether there will be any lawsuits in the offing over that, following the EU’s recent success. Internet penetration in the region is up to 77%, while mobile penetration is up to 81%.

Forward3D employs over 300 people in 11 offices around the world, having also opened a new Hong Kong office earlier in the year, and it values the importance of local expertise for its clients and their target audiences.

Faisal Dean, Dubai-based Foward3D account director, said of the new market expansion: “Arabic is now the fastest growing language by internet users and fourth in overall languages used (ahead of both Portuguese and French) online. Driven by the growth in internet usage in MENA, coupled with the continually changing digital landscape (products, competition, transparency issues), we have more and more clients looking for a digital agency to help solve complex problems in addition to media buying. With our purpose-built in-house tech, digital analysts, and data science team, Forward3D is well placed to expand upon our continued global success with a local presence here in Dubai."

ADYOULIKE releases ‘Native Creative 2.0’

In-feed native ad platform, ADYOULIKE, has announced the release of ‘Native Creative 2.0’, which provides added features to advertisers and publishers, allowing them to develop more engaging experiences for users within native ad units.

The new features are designed to provide the best visual experience for users, in a bid not to frustrate them, with ‘sound off, autoplay video’ being one such example of how publishers will be able to deliver increased engagement through native.

The launch comes hot on the heels of ADYOULIKE’s integration of IBM Watson’s AI semantic tool into its platform, solidifying its commitment to developing the next phase of creative native advertising.

Francis Turner, GM, US and CRO, ADYOULIKE, said: “The launch of Native Creative 2.0 has the objective to help tackle the challenges brands, agencies, and publishers face in regards to creativity – by enabling these to create native ad campaigns that boost creativity while delivering brand awareness engagement and ROI levels advertisers expect.”