Smaato
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Overview
Smaato was established in 2005 by Ragnar Kruse and Petra Vorsteher. Smaato gets its name from the Japanese word for "smart". The Empire State Building in New York City is home to Smaato's headquarters. Smaato has offices in Hamburg, Berlin, Amsterdam, Seoul, Pune, Istanbul, Madrid, and Beijing. The company has over 190 employees from more than 40 countries.
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History
Smaato was established in 2005 and one year later introduced its mobile supply-side platform (SSP). In 2012, Smaato launched its real-time bidding ad exchange. Thereafter, the company's focus shifted towards mobile acquisition and expansion of its automation platform's self-service aspect.
The Smaato Publisher Platform (SPX), a comprehensive publisher ad server, was launched by the company in 2015. The platform offers app developers and digital publishers the ability to profit from their properties immediately by employing real-time data to send targeted consumers to advertisers.
The next year, Smaato was picked by Google and incorporated into the AdMob and DoubleClick for Publishers platforms, through SDK-less mediation. Later in 2016, Smaato further developed its products for the demand side of mobile advertising. Smaato's Demand Platform (SDX) provided mobile ad traffic demand partners with increased flexibility and control. In 2016, Beijing-based Spearhead Integrated Marketing Communication Group acquired Smaato for $148 million.
In 2018, the company collaborated with Amazon Publisher Services (APS) to give demand partners within the app the ability to access Amazon's Transparent Ad Marketplace inventory.
In 2021, Smaato was acquired by Verve Group, a subsidiary of MGI – Media and Games Invest SE (MGI).
Innovation
Smaato is currently focusing on leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning. In May 2018, their Automated Traffic Curation (ATC) product was reported to significantly reduce costs of programmatic bidding for demand-side platforms (DSPs). The machine learning technology filters out less relevant inventory before sending a bid request to a demand partner's platform, thus saving time and reducing expenses related to data processing.
The majority of Smaato's revenues currently come from the US, but the company expects a significant increase in the Chinese market in the coming years. In March 2021, the company introduced an OTT solution within its Smaato Publisher Platform (SPX) and carried out Server-Side Ad Insertion in-house.
In July 2021, Smaato was acquired by Media and Games Invest. Together with Verve Group, Smaato completes the tech stack with omnichannel offerings across web, in-app, DOOH, and CTV.