Seven ad tech companies made transactions valued at over $1 billion in the first quarter of 2021 – double the amount that’s happened in the past few years combined. “We’ve got a perfect storm here of different forces lining up, which created such a strong quarter,” said Conor McKenna, LUMA Partners Director. The ad tech investment banking firm LUMA tallied up recent deals in its Q1 2021 Market Report last week. To check out Conor McKenna’s full interview on the market in the article, click the button.Keep Reading

Ad Tech is back in vogue with the investment community and, more importantly, buyers, as the once unpopular sector is one of a handful that have benefited from the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking at Adweek’s Outlook 2021: The Year Ahead in Marketing and Media event Wednesday, Terence Kawaja, CEO of investment bank LUMA Partners, told virtual attendees that after a dip in M&A activity in early 2020, the ad-tech, mar-tech and digital content sector saw a 20% annual increase in deals with 96 such purchases in Q4. Click the link to read the full article.Keep Reading

The DSP Beeswax, founded in 2014 by ad tech gadfly Ari Paparo, is off the market. Comcast’s video ad tech company FreeWheel said Thursday it will acquire the “bidder-as-a-service” for undisclosed terms. “Many companies in ad tech have structured the sales of their technology as SaaS, although it’s often not bought that way – but in Beeswax’s case, their technology is bought and sold on a SaaS business model, and that makes a big difference,” said Terry Kawaja, founder and CEO of LUMA Partners, which advised on the deal. Click the button to read the article.Keep Reading

After a rocky few years, adtech stocks are soaring once again. The adtech rally flies somewhat in the face of trends at the beginning of the pandemic, when many advertisers hit pause on spending before spending started recovering around May. Moreover, with tough competition with Google and Facebook for digital ad dollars and a string of high-profile casualties in the space, investors had long turned their back on the adtech sector. To be sure, much of the resurgence in adtech stocks has little to do with the sector itself and more with the wider macroeconomic environment, experts say.Keep Reading

LUMA Partners behind more than $300 billion of digital media and marketing transactions during the past two decades. CEO Terence Kawaja in a fireside chat with Megaphone’s Brendan Monaghan on Podcast Movement panel states that podcasting is one of the media he is most bullish about in the coming years. Click the button to read the article.Keep Reading

TransUnion, the country’s third-largest credit reporting agency, is buying data company Tru Optik in a deal understood to be worth north of $100 million. Investment bank Luma Partners helped broker the deal. Founder and CEO Terence Kawaja told Adweek that M&A discussion in the space is about to experience a surge after a hiatus caused by the economic impact of the pandemic. Click the button to view the article.Keep Reading

The release of the Black LUMAscape is an attentive response that aims to: Support the cause for equal access, visibility, and innovation from the Black community Enable and promote targeted economic benefit and Align with LUMA’s voice in the market Click the button to view the article. For the Black LUMAscape, click here.Keep Reading

Investment bank LUMA Partners LLC has made Black-owned media, marketing and technology companies the focus of the latest installment in its LUMAscape series of charts, which investors and others use as industry references, amid a broad push for racial justice. Terence Kawaja, a founder of LUMA and its chief executive, said the company drew up the “Black LUMAscape” to raise awareness of Black-owned companies in industries that have been criticized for their lack of diversity. The new chart includes technology firm StackShare, The Weather Channel and direct-to-consumer beauty company Pat McGrath Labs. Click the button to read the full article.Keep Reading

The advertising industry and civil rights organizations have teamed to ratchet up pressure on the social media giant, but the company is holding firm. Click the button to check out Terence Kawaja’s position on the situation in the full article from NBC News.Keep Reading

Lawyer, stand-up comedian, and an investment banker?! LUMA’s Terence Kawaja talks about how content marketing skills, storytelling, and comedy led to his success as an investment banker in Superpowers Podcast with Bill Wise and Chris Cunningham. Watch Terry’s Comedy in Business presentation on how you can use comedy (or your own unique unusual skills) to enhance your branding and marketing skills.Keep Reading

It was a chilly Q1 for ad tech deal-making, and you can expect more of the same in the second quarter. But you can’t blame it all on COVID-19 – at least not entirely. The ongoing health crisis is only accelerating trends that were already rolling, said Terry Kawaja, CEO and founder of investment bank LUMA Partners, which released its Q1 2020 market report on Tuesday. Click the button below to check out the full article.Keep Reading

After a relatively quiet 2018, last year was a pretty boisterous party for mar-tech mergers and acquisitions. Driven by legacy television players, like AT&T, eager to get ahead of the fast-emerging connected TV sector and midmarket players pooling their fortunes, LUMA Partners Q4 2019 Market Report found, the number of media and mar-tech deals jumped to 351 in 2019, up from 258 the previous year. Click the button below to check out Adweek’s latest article and access LUMA’s Q4 2019 Market Report here.Keep Reading

In a conversation that ranges from the upcoming streaming wars to the ongoing direct-to-consumer trend to a look ahead at next month’s CES, Terence Kawaja gives a general sense of the state of things from his vantage point of an investment banker obsessed with digital media and marketing. Oh, he is also, pretty funny. For an investment banker.Keep Reading

Last year, Direct to Consumer (D2C) brands stole the show, most notably in Terry Kawaja’s presentation, ‘Fire your CMO‘ presentation. This year, as first-time sponsors, we were surprised that D2C brands were largely absent from both the stage and the conference floor. Click the button to read the full article.Keep Reading

Talking Stack identifies LUMA’s Digital Brief 024 — Market Report Q2 2019 as the “Report of the week”. Podcast team David Raab, Chitra Iyer, and Anand Thaker talk about the rise and rise of the customer data management space as well as how the need for improved data activation and platform integration is going to impact the space; the need for a D2C expert on the Talking Stack and other little nuggets from the report.Keep Reading

The online advertising world is now navigating a set of seemingly contradictory trends. On the one hand, technology which pieces together the various parts of audience’s online identity is becoming important. Yet, on the other, regulation is now limiting some of the excesses of ad targeting. The digital marketing world’s arch deal-maker says that adds up to a “double-edged sword”.Keep Reading

Last month, French ad holding giant Publicis announced that it was shelling out $4.4 billion to acquire Alliance Data’s Epsilon marketing unit to bolster its data capabilities and expand its digital business in North America. That move makes the company more relevant to its clients, Rishad Tobaccowala, Publicis’ chief growth officer, said, speaking to former GroupM executive Rob Norman at the LUMA’s Digital Media Summit on Tuesday in New York City.Keep Reading

IBM is bowing out of MarTech and offloading its marketing cloud assets – for the second time. Competition from the other scaled marketing players was fierce and Big Blue’s heart hasn’t been in it for a while. LUMA Partner’s Terence Kawaja weighs in on IBM’s exit from the MarTech space.Keep Reading

Having categorized more than 400 marketers in the direct-to-consumer space, LUMA Partners knows what has helped to make many of them successful. Trying to imitate them within the confines of traditional marketing isn’t easy, so some legacy companies are acquiring them for both their market share and contemporary culture, according to Founder & CEO Terry Kawaja.Keep Reading

Many of the hot brands in retail today didn’t exist a decade ago. But now, backed by big-time venture capital, new direct-to-consumer players are making enough waves in the retail landscape that heritage players are forced to pay attention. Larger brands caught dueling for consumer dollars might do well to adopt some of the marketing strategies that startup brands have deployed from infancy. Check out LUMA’s Terry Kawaja in AdAge’s latest article.Keep Reading

Legacy brands may struggle to compete with direct-to-consumer rivals unless they consider making acquisitions in this space, according to Terry Kawaja, CEO & Founder of LUMA Partners, a New York-based investment bank.Keep Reading

The presentation led by investment banker Terry Kawaja of LUMA proved to be one of the more popular sessions at the Association of National Advertisers annual “Masters of Marketing” conference, which drew an estimated 3,000 people to the Rosen Shingle Creek resort in Orlando resort.Keep Reading

DPAA President and CEO Barry Frey caught up with LUMA CEO Terry Kawaja for a quick look at LUMA and what Terry will be addressing at the Video Everywhere Summit on October 30.Keep Reading

Don’t call it a comeback but, after coming through a period in which a slowdown was capped by new regulation, ad-tech consolidation may be back in-play. So says Terry Kawaja, the M&A advisor who has had a hand in many of the biggest media and advertising tech deals of the last decade. Despite fears that GDPR and an American equivalent could nix many modern ad-tech practices, Kawaja notes that the lights are still on and deals are still being done – in precisely the area thought to be under threat.Keep Reading

Online advertising companies have struggled for several years as Google and Facebook solidified their grip on digital dollars, slowing revenue for the others. Now, many ad tech companies and their investors are throwing up their hands.Keep Reading

AdExchanger Talks is a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. This week’s podcast guest LUMA Partners CEO Terry Kawaja talks about LUMA’s approach and shares his current view on the market.Keep Reading

Mazel tov, it’s a merger. On Tuesday, Judge Richard Leon gave his blessing to AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The judgment capped five weeks of testimony, six weeks of deliberation and a fair amount of nail-biting in executive suites from Dallas to New York City. The deal sets a precedent that can be leveraged by other companies, said LUMA Partners founder and CEO Terry Kawaja.Keep Reading

Sir Martin Sorrell has hinted at what he will do next after leaving advertising group WPP following allegations of personal misconduct. Speaking to LUMA Partners Chief Executive Terence Kawaja at the company’s Digital Media Summit in New York on Tuesday, Sorrell implied he would set up a new agency.Keep Reading

Sir Martin Sorrell, the former chief executive of advertising giant WPP Plc, described himself as a “realist” regarding the challenges facing traditional media and advertising companies and emphasized the need for scale during an interview at an ad-industry event. On stage with LUMA Partners CEO Terence Kawaja at the company’s Digital Media Summit in New York on Tuesday, Mr. Sorrell continued to point to the growing advertising and programming strength of Amazon.com Inc. and its potential to challenge television companies as well as the advertising duopoly of Google and Facebook Inc.Keep Reading

Despite broad concerns about the viability of online media and advertising, M&A in the sector is heating up thanks to the growth of ecommerce and commerce-based media solutions, like Apple’s purchase of digital subscription service Next Issue Media for an undisclosed amount.Keep Reading

In 50 secs LUMA CEO Terence Kawaja solves the problem. How To Fix The Future interview w/ Andrew Keen.Keep Reading

LUMA’s founder and CEO, Terry Kawaja, billed 2017 as a period for “healthy clean-up” in the media and marketing space, as a number of public ad tech firms trading at low valuations were acquired or taken private.Keep Reading

2017 was a busy year of M&A for the digital media and marketing sector, according to reports released by investment banks JEGI and LUMA Partners this week. But the big story, according to LUMA, was in ad tech, where increasing consolidation led to “healthy clean-up activity,” said Founder and CEO Terry Kawaja.Keep Reading

Terence Kawaja, founder and CEO of LUMA Partners, joins BNN to discuss Disney’s deal with 21st Century Fox.Keep Reading

It’s been a long time since industry analysts expressed optimism about the fate of big-box retailers, but a ray of light just crept in. Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Home Depot each topped earnings estimates and demonstrated strong year-over-year growth.Keep Reading

The digital media investment banking firm Luma Partners released its quarterly report documenting M&A trends across the marketing technology and media landscape.AdExchangerKeep Reading

If you’ve been to a digital media event, you’ve seen the LUMAscape, showing the vast number of programmatic advertising firms that dot the industry. Some see innovations; others see a mess. LUMA founder Terry Kawaja sees opportunity.Keep Reading

Venture capital for ad tech slowed down, while mergers and acquisitions rose. And as fake news became one of the hottest topics in the media industry, it became more apparent than ever that some ad tech companies profited from proliferating fake news while others banked on preventing ads from reaching fake-news sites.Keep Reading

In this video interview, LUMA Partners founder and CEO Terence Kawaja spoke with Beet.TV at LUMA’s own Digital Media Summit, where he delivered a State Of Digital Media address he said puts “the case for optimism”.Keep Reading

LUMA Partners clocked 13 ad tech deals this quarter with 11 acquisitions valued at more than $100 million, a pace similar to its M&A category results for every quarter over the past year. Oracle Data CloudKeep Reading

Despite predictions that winter is coming to ad tech, deal activity for the ad tech, mar tech and digital media sectors was tentatively healthy in 2016, according to reports released this week by investment banks LUMA Partners, JEGI and Petsky Prunier.Keep Reading

For companies in the crowded online advertising sector it’s been a bumpy ride in the past few years.Keep Reading

Are the Chinese buyers that have been feasting on Western ad tech companies just starting on their appetizers?Keep Reading

The distinction between the two sectors is increasingly blurring, but investors say a predictable revenue model is key.Keep Reading

Another day, another Chinese group splashing out on ad tech.Keep Reading

The threats are mounting. With challenges like viewability, fraud and ad blocking rising, the online ad industry could risk falling, just as Rome’s empire did before it.Keep Reading

It’s not entirely gloomy. One of the sector’s seasoned watchers and deal advisors, LUMA Partners CEO Terence Kawaja, describes the segment’s situation as “a tale of two cities”.Keep Reading

Study Finds Only 40% of Digital Buys Going to Working Media.Keep Reading

It ocurred to me in that moment that a LUMAscape has been shown or referenced in greater than half of the many presentations and sessions on adtech that I’ve seen.I immediately began reflecting on why. Before I expound on why, let’s start with what.Keep Reading

“Much has changed in the agency world since then, and that change is accelerating with the growing presence of data and software in the mix.Keep Reading

If you want to get a handle on what’s happening with TV and the state of the digital video market, investment bank LUMA Partners’ CEO Terence Kawaja delivered another of his epic presentations at VidCon last month on exactly that.Keep Reading

LUMA Partners CEO Terry Kawaja explains why investors will be mindful of FitBit’s valuation ahead of its IPO.Keep Reading

As the now-well-known LUMAscape from LUMA Partners denotes, the ad tech sector is dense, complicated, and poorly understood (even by people who work in the industry): Agency trading desks, ad servers, verification companies, data management platforms, exchanges, demand-side platforms, supply-side-platforms, the list goes on. And that size and complexity not necessarily a sign of health.Keep Reading

It is with great pleasure that I announce a major expansion of the LUMA partnership. Joining LUMA Partners in our West Coast offices are Mark Greenbaum (second from left) and Dick Filippini (far left); two very experienced bankers from GCA Savvian.Keep Reading

If you are tired of trying to distinguish one “end-to-end, full-service video targeting and decisioning” vendor from another, imagine how people from outside the digital video industry must feel.Keep Reading

The recent flurry of media M&A activities, including the AT&T DirectTV deal, means that the big players are “lining up their assets” in advance of the inevitable convergence of TV and digital video, says Terence Kawaja, head of LUMA Partners, a boutique New York investment bank specializing in digital media, in this interview with Beet.TV.Keep Reading

It’s amazing what a couple of months can do. In July, the Ad Tech sector was reeling from its third underwhelming IPO of the year.Keep Reading

Newly Public Firms Take a Pounding in the Market as Investors Try to Suss Out What Differentiates Them.Keep Reading

LUMA Partners founder and CEO Terence Kawaja has long been the grand organizer of the ad tech market. His LUMAscapes have become the most recognizable and easily refereneable maps of who’s involved in the buying and selling of ad inventory, be it display, search, social, video, mobile, etc.Keep Reading

You can’t move these days for new research indicating the rise of of “second-screeners” — those of us who watch television while using a handheld device. But, as upstart operators scurry around trying to exploit that fact with variants of social or interactive TV add-ons, what is the real business opportunity here?Keep Reading

Here’s the latest chart from investment bankers Luma Partners.Keep Reading

Ad tech is over. The landscape is overcrowded, venture capitalists have moved on, and real action is elsewhere in tech.Keep Reading