US-based GTCR snaps up Standard Media Index through Dreamscape
GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm founded in 1980, said today it has made a strategic investment through its portfolio company Dreamscape in global advertising intelligence company Standard Media Index (SMI).
As part of the transaction, SMI’s chief executive officer, James Fennessy, will step down from his position and will become a member of Dreamscape’s board of directors, remaining a consultant to the business. Marketing technology veteran Scott Knoll will assume the role of chief executive officer of SMI, effective immediately.
With a vision to bring transparency and efficiency to the media market globally, SMI was co-founded by Sue Fennessy and Jane Ractliffe in 2009 in Australia and moved headquarters to New York in 2011.
Fennessy served as chief executive officer until 2016, where she grew her team and built the tech and data infrastructure which now tracks over $250 billion dollars of annual media spend globally.
James Fennessy initially served as chief commercial officer before assuming the role of chief executive officer. Under his leadership, SMI grew global coverage, revenue, financial market products, and developed a host of innovative media spend and cross-screen pricing solutions.
“Today is an important milestone for the entire SMI team, our partners and our clients, as we look toward our next stage of growth,” said Fennessy. “This investment is a culmination of Sue’s vision for SMI and a testament to the dedication and professionalism of the SMI team that has enabled us to transform how transparent ad cost and spend data is used by the industry. The goal of SMI has always been to form strategic relationships with the world’s leading data-driven companies by providing actionable advertising expenditure and pricing data to ultimately help improve decision making. It is through this core mission that we have grown to be a trusted global source of ad intelligence. This partnership with GTCR and Dreamscape is the next step in our journey and we are all very excited at the potential this new venture will deliver for our partners and customers.”
“We look forward to working with Dreamscape to deliver even further benefits to our clients and agency partners,” said Ractliffe.
SMI is a provider of advertising data and insights to media marketplace participants. SMI’s innovative platform makes it possible for the marketing industry to have a real-world view into advertising spend, ad revenue, media pricing and future-booked commitments.
SMI has offices in New York, London, Madrid, Sydney and Toronto, providing global data services and insights to markets in 34 countries around the world. In their major markets, SMI captures spend and pricing data that represents more than 95% of all U.S. national brand expenditure.
Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Dreamscape was founded in May 2020 as a partnership between Scott Knoll, David Hahn and Michael Iantosca and GTCR. The partnership’s focus is to acquire companies and assets as part of a strategy to build a leading marketing technology business. The investment in SMI is the second by Dreamscape, after last month’s announcement of an investment in SQAD, an advertising research, analytics, and media planning software company.
“SMI’s leading data and ad intelligence products provide clients with real-time information to help drive better strategies around spend, placement and yield optimization,” said Knoll.
“We see tremendous upside potential in SMI and its advertising software solutions,” said Craig Bondy, managing director and co-head of TMT at GTCR. “The company is well-positioned in the marketing and advertising industry with deep relationships with its partners and customers which have served it well. We believe that our investment, alongside the Dreamscape team, will provide the resources to expand SMI’s current product portfolio to address new markets and create fully integrated solutions for its customers. We are excited to partner with the SMI team and advance its mission.”
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
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topics
acquisiton
dreamscape
GTCR
james fennessy
M&A
mergers and acquisitions
SMI
Standard Media Index
sue fennessy
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