- "BrightRoll is a large, growing and profitable business with net revenues expected to exceed $100 million this year," says Yahoo (YHOO) as it announces its acquisition of the video ad platform. The deal is expected to close in Q1 2015.
- Yahoo notes BrightRoll's programmatic (automated) ad platform handles ad-buying for 87 AdAge Top 100 U.S. advertisers, as well as all of the top 10 demand-side (advertiser-facing) online ad platforms. Meanwhile, BrightRoll's publisher-facing offerings monetize ad inventory for "tens of thousands" of sites/apps.
- Yahoo, hungry for some time to grow its video ad scale and put an end to its display ad revenue declines, declares acquiring BrightRoll "will dramatically strengthen Yahoo's video advertising platform, making it the largest in the US."
- The acquisition price is lower than the ~$700M previously reported by TechCrunch. Yahoo just reaped $6.3B in post-tax Alibaba IPO proceeds; it has promised to return at least half of the sum to shareholders.