The hotly-anticipated MadTechMoney event returns with a stellar line-up this week. We caught up with First Party Capital's Managing Director Rich Ashton to discuss the event, ad tech M&A, and much more...

How would you best summarise the MadTechMoney event?

The only event that connects the most exciting ad tech and martech startups in Europe with the investor community. In previous years we have had 200+ attendees, with 75+ companies represented, and 100+ investors in attendance (including business angels, VC, PE and strategic acquirers).

What is the aim of the event?

To shine a light on a trillion dollar sector that is overlooked by the broader investor community, and to facilitate relationships between early stage companies and potential investors/acquirers.

What have been the big investment trends in ad tech this year?

Well obviously everyone is an “AI” company these days, but ad tech has a long history of ML, using vast amount of computing power to analyse huge data sets in real time, so we tend to avoid the buzzwords (RIP “Web3” startups…) and focus on the actual problem that is being solve for marketers or publishers. 

Commerce media is probably the most interesting growth area, as hundreds of retailers, marketplaces and other non-traditional media companies wake up to the realisation that ad tech could be the saviour of businesses with poor unit economics, that need to finally get profitable as the endless rounds of VC funding have dried up. 

What are the likely trends going to be in 2025?  What areas of ad tech are attracting the most attention?

Tiktok and the full force of live commerce / social commerce has not yet been unleashed on the West. We expect to see more companies developing solutions around TikTok Shop, specifically in creative automation, analytics and managed service offerings. 

Curation is one of the topics du jour, and we are seeing incumbent players as well as start-ups leaning heavily into this.

Linear TV is not declining quite as fast as expected in Europe, so some of the initial hysteria around CTV has been overblown but data-driven TV / Convergent TV is clearly another big growth area, enabling smaller brands to start to advertise on TV, and helping larger brands and agencies to get smarter on how they are targeting and measuring TV campaigns.

Has the funding landscape improved?  Or are good companies still finding it challenging to raise money in the market?

Despite the resurgence in M&A over the last 6 months, the funding environment remains challenging. Investment dollars are chasing hot AI startups at crazy valuations, leaving limited capital for real businesses. Hopefully interest rates will continue to ease, and investors will shift back towards the private markets in search of better returns. 

Hopefully we will also see increased M&A activity and a return of IPOs, which will provide much needed liquidity to the venture ecosystem, allowing LPs and VCs to deploy capital into new funds and startups.

Will there be more M&A action this year?

Speaking with a few bankers recently it does sounds like we are in for a flurry of M&A deals this quarter. In the UK, the potential changes to CGT are causing some business owners to accelerate the sale of their business before the next budget announcement.

In the US we are weeks away from the election. The general sentiment seems to be that a win for the Republicans would lead to more large-scale M&A deals being approved.

How is Europe faring this year regarding M&A?  What is the FPC M&A tracker saying?

There have been a few notable announcements in recent months:

• Teads acquired by Outbrain
• Bannerflow acquired by Tenzing
• Equativ acquires/merges with Sharethrough
• Kamino acquired by Equativ
• Pathlabs acquired by MIQ

According to the ad tech rumour mill we may see a UK-based ad tech company being snapped up by a US acquirer for a chunky nine-figure sum before the end of the year.

Hear all about these issues and much more at MadTech Money 2024 - tickets available here.