JustEggs has been acquired by global adtech firm Seedtag, B&T can reveal.
The deal will see Madrid-based Seedtag continue its global expansion, absorbing the JustEggs team and its tech stack to help it launch into the APAC market.
Seedtag was founded in the Spanish capital 10 years ago and provides contextual ad solutions for brands using a proprietary AI model, Liz. JustEggs, meanwhile, has been providing high-impact creative for brands since 2013.
“This merger is a strategic move rather than an exit strategy,” JustEggs CEO and founder Nik Kontoulas, now managing director ANZ of Seedtag, told B&T.
“Last year, we were actively seeking the best contextual technologies in the market and were incredibly impressed by what Albert [Nieto Riera] and Jorge [Poyatos, co-founders of Seedtag] have built.
“We are committed to staying on board post-merger, and in fact, we’re expanding our team to strengthen our ability to bring these innovations to the Aussie market.”
Dal Singh Gill, Seedtag’s VP new markets, added that the JustEggs acquisition was a “match made in Heaven” given their “very complementary” offerings.
“We look at various elements when analysing [companies to merge with] and doing our due diligence. One is obviously a great founder and a great team behind them, simplicity in offering and reputation in the market,” he explained.
“JustEggs’ reputation is really strong across the main clients, agencies and brands. It also has a great presence in the market even with some bigger players than themselves from a revenue perspective. It was also about having the right cultural fit. Not just buying a company for the sake of it.”
Kontoulas added that the merger will allow JustEggs to enhance its services and expand its solutions at a critical time for the digital advertising landscape with the deprecation of third-party cookies.
“Brands and agencies are increasingly seeking contextual AI solutions tailored for the local market,” he said.
Thanks to the merger, JustEggs will also be able to start expanding its offerings across a “broader range of media channels” rather than just digital publishers alone.
While the news of the merger is breaking now, the two teams have already started to integrate JustEggs’ tech stack with Seedtag’s. Kontoulas said that during the transition period, both products will coexist before the integration is finalised when the combined teams aim to create “market-first” solutions powered by Seedtag’s contextual AI model Liz.
For existing JustEggs clients, Kontoulas said that the merger will give them a “unique contextual AI solution to enhance their digital campaigns. It will also lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness in meeting our clients’ needs, leveraging the combined strengths of both entities to deliver even better results.”
Seedtag, meanwhile, has been busy expanding its operations around the world recently. It opened a US office two years ago, opened in India and Peru last year, launched in Canada in May and acquired US-based CTV and streaming SSP player Beachfront last month.
“We want to ensure that we have a global footprint for the clients that we work with. We are working with agencies from big holding companies and brands from across the world. They’re working across 20, 30, 40 markets and that’s what we facilitate,” said Gill.
“Ultimately, we want to be a global company and we’ve still got a lot of markets to tick off. We are in the US, UK, across most of Europe, LATAM, Canada, Dubai as well as India and now Australia.”
Gill added that Australia was a natural next step for Seedtag given the maturity of the market, its highly engaged publishers and its forward-thinking digital ad market.
The JustEggs team, well-known within the Australian market, will be sticking around.
“There’s no intention to change something that’s working really well. We’re only going to be amplifying that team and adding to it,” said Gill.
He also confirmed that there will be no consolidation of roles post-merger, saying that JustEggs ran “quite a lean team” already.
While neither Kontoulas nor Gill were at liberty to discuss the financial details of the deal, Gill said that there was “value” for both companies in the merger.
This is the second Aussie-global adtech merger this year if you’re keeping score. In April, it was announced that Playground xyz would be merging its APAC media offering into GumGum’s overall offering, together with a rebrand.
While there are similarities between the deals, particularly with GumGum’s focus on contextual ad placements, Kontoulas said that both acquisitions had more to do with Australia’s status as a market rather than any big macro forces.
“I believe it’s really down to our advanced position in digital technology. These acquisitions reflect the recognition of Australia’s strong demand for innovative, proprietary solutions from both agencies and clients alike. We are a tech-savvy market and have a huge appetite for cutting-edge digital solutions. Also key to mention that Australia is a great place to springboard into SEA,” he said.
