Stagwell buys publisher ad tech firm Freestar to deepen its media stack
What's the deal? StagwellDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the publicly traded ad holding group, has acquired FreestarDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a digital ad company that helps more than 1,000 publishers sell their inventory. Terms were not disclosed.
What each side gets: Freestar — whose clients include Boston Globe MediaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Fortune Media, and Enthusiast Gaming — will fold into Stagwell's Owned Media unit. Its publisher clients gain a shorter path to Stagwell's advertisers and tools, while Stagwell gets a more direct line into publisher inventory and audience data.
Why now? Stagwell has spent the year building supply-side capabilities, launching the Stagwell Curate marketplace in July and investing in RealClear Holdings in September. The pressure is visible: Media and Commerce, the segment Owned Media sits in, grew just 1% organically in the second quarter.
What they're saying: "Publishers are essential to a healthy media ecosystem, and we believe their long-term success is critical to the future of our industry," said Ben Berentson, chief executive officer of Stagwell Owned Media. Freestar chief executive officer Kurt Donnell said joining Stagwell lets the 11-year-old company add "new capabilities, while staying true to the publisher-first approach that has always been our north star."
What could go wrong? Owning the firm that runs ad sales for dozens of publishers raises questions about how Stagwell will keep its buying and selling interests apart. "Transparency will be even more top of mind," said Ciaran O'Kane, general partner at FirstPartyCapital, warning that outside clients will want to know why spend runs through an agency-owned stack.
The signal: The deal mirrors a broader push by ad groups to own the technology connecting advertisers with publisher inventory — echoed by PublicisDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →' $2.2 billion bid for data platform LiveRamp. As AI agents take on more programmatic spend, holding companies increasingly want that activity running on infrastructure they control.
Read more: finance.yahoo.com, Axios
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
