Permutive Raises $18.5 Million as the Search for a Cookie Alternative Continues

Permutive, a publisher-focused data management platform (DMP), has raised $18.5 million in Series B funding.
The cash injection comes as the digital advertising industry faces increased regulations and the depletion of third-party cookies. Those changes make publishers’ consented first-party data more valuable, meaning they’ll need partners to help organize and eventually monetize it.
“What we see, as cookies disappear, is that publisher data becomes the new currency … rather than third-party cookies,” said Joe Root, co-founder and CEO of Permutive.
“The role of the DMP is to enable publishers to provide data signals to the rest of the ecosystem so they can effectively bid on and value an ad, and that requires publishers to take what they know from authenticated web and scale that out across the anonymous [web],” he continued.
Permutive, a U.K.-based company, will use the funding to focus on expanding its U.S. presence and product development. Some of its American publisher partners include Vox, BuzzFeed, Business Insider and Penske Media.
Part of the product roadmap includes building a marketplace that would allow advertisers to programmatically buy publisher first-party data at scale, which Root said isn’t possible today.
“Effectively, over the next 18 months, we believe it will allow publishers to replace the entire third-party data ecosystem,” Root said.
The industry is quickly looking for a viable replacement to the third-party cookie following Google’s announcement that it would remove support for third-party web trackers for the purposes of advertising from its market-leading Chrome browser by 2022.
Founded in 2015, Permutive has raised roughly $30 million in total funding. Octopus Ventures and EQT Ventures led the Series B investment round.
“Data has become the bedrock of the publishing and advertising industries, as the infrastructure of both has changed dramatically over the past year. Uniquely, Permutive allows organizations to build a ‘first-party’ data business,” Ali Mitchell, partner and investment advisor at EQT Ventures, said in a statement. “This is the new currency for online media and therefore vital for advertisers, who require trust, insights and transparency over what they are buying.”