Innovid Eyes $1.3 Billion Valuation in Latest Ad Tech SPAC

Ad tech is as hot as ever, as advertisers embrace connected TV technologies and venture capitalists eye a return on their early investments. Today, Innovid is the latest company in the space to announce its intention to list on the public markets through a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) ION Acquisition Corp. 2. The SPAC, which will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has $253 million in trust. With Innovid securing $150 million of financing from institutional investors, the company is valued at $1.3 billion. The combined company will trade under the name Innovid. CTV narrative Innovid provides interactive, rich media ad units and offers an ad server with measurement services that are optimized for connected television. It boasts integrations with Magnite, Roku and The Trade Desk. CTV has been at the core of Innovid’s narrative with the company forecast to generate $95 million in revenue for 2021, a projected 38% year-on-year increase, with the figure expected to reach $177 million in 2023. Innovid announced its intention to list publicly after a $30 million investment in 2019. Although it was rumored to have also sought the potential for a sale in recent months, a company spokesperson denied this when asked by Adweek. Zvika Netter, cofounder and CEO of Innovid, said the company would use the expected proceeds of its public listing to further its growth, including potential M&A opportunities. Innovid is the second ad tech company to make such an announcement this week with Integral Ad Science announcing its intended $2.6 billion IPO on Monday. Zeta Global and AcuityAds listed on the public markets earlier this month with the pair valued at $1.7 billion and $600 million, respectively, on the opening day of trading. The name ‘ION Acquisition Corp.’ may appear familiar to observers of the space. The investment platform was the facilitator of Taboola’s intended public listing earlier this year. Although it is with nothing that ION Acquisition Corp. 1 (Taboola) and ION Acquisition Corp. 2 (Innovid) will trade as entirely separate entities. The announcement is the latest in a glut of public listing developments from companies in the ad tech space since late 2020. IAS-rival DoubleVerify went public earlier this year while Taboola’s main competitor Outbrain also plans an IPO. IPO Rumors: Is Wall Street Ready To Embrace Ad Tech (Again)? Such listings are the reversal of a trend from the late 2010s which saw many ad tech outfits that had previously gone public earlier in the decade taken private after they failed to live up to their earlier promise. Sources note how the public filings from this crop of companies indicate their revenues are, on average, outstripping the overall growth of the advertising market. According to several sources, the current crop of companies with ambitions of going public differ from those that listed in the early 2010s, as they are more than just ad networks masquerading as ad tech. An equities analyst who conducts research into more established public ad tech peers, indicated a note of caution, however. “The equities markets have no way of telling what's good from what isn't. And it's disappointing because there's a big difference between a lot of these assets," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Adweek. “As long as there’s continued investor-interest in the category," our source doesn’t expect to see any let-up soon. Ad Tech Is Facing the Loss of Another Important Signal: the IP Address