Madrid's Taptap buys Manchester adtech Skyrise as founders exit
What's the deal? Madrid-based Taptap DigitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has acquired Manchester-headquartered SkyriseDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, an adtech firm. Skyrise will keep its brand under Taptap, with chief executive officer Paul Barnard, who has led the business since 2023, staying on with the existing management team.
Who's leaving? Skyrise founders Ian Vint and Michelle Vint — a married couple — along with Alex Petrie, will exit. The trio merged their businesses, RegitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Skyrise IntelligenceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, in 2023.
What's the endgame? Taptap runs an AI-powered location intelligence platform, and says Skyrise adds one of the UK's most advanced privacy-first audience design capabilities. The combined offering lets advertisers identify, activate, and measure audiences without relying on cookies or personal identifiers.
Why now? Over the past two years, Taptap has expanded from its UK and Brazil operations into Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, plus partnerships in Ireland, South Africa, and the MENA region. It is building toward North America.
"By integrating Skyrise's exceptional audience discovery capabilities into Taptap's global infrastructure and our evolving AI and agentic capabilities, we are transforming how complex geo-contextual data is understood, activated, and measured at scale," said Álvaro Mayol, partner and chief executive officer of Taptap Digital.
Barnard said the deal lets Skyrise "rapidly scale our audience design methodology on a truly global stage," citing Taptap's engineering depth and international footprint.
The signal: The acquisition reflects adtech's pivot toward privacy-first targeting as cookies fade, with growth concentrating in channels like connected TV and programmatic digital out-of-home. For Taptap, it strengthens its UK position and builds a platform for expansion across EMEA and, ultimately, the US.
Read more: businesscloud.co.uk
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
