Azerion acquires AdPlay and strengthens Italian digital advertising foothold

Today, Azerion has announced the acquisition of AdPlay, an Italian based digital advertising platform. Together, the companies will provide advertisers with access to even larger audiences in Italy through exciting new formats and content like digital out of home and first look at highly relevant sports content. At the same time, publishing partners will benefit from the additional revenues and advertising formats Azerion will bring to them.

Umu tAkpinar, co-CEO of Azerion, comments: “I am pleased to announce the acquisition of AdPlay and strengthen our advertising business in Italy. The AdPlay team is a perfect fit with our Azerion culture, and their local expertise and experience will add to our ability to help our Italian customers to get the results they need from their advertising budgets. I am also very excited to welcome AdPlay’s Italian partners to the Azerion platform and grow our business together with them as well as extending our connected TV and digital out of home reach in the local market.”

Azerion will integrate AdPlay’s digital cross-media solutions and campaign performance management, adding to its robust current offering in these areas. AdPlay exclusively represents some of the most relevant Italian publishers and has been pioneering the digital out of home market in Italy. Through this acquisition, Azerion will strengthen its position in Italy and increase its relevance as a partner that delivers easy, impactful and affordable access to large and diverse audiences through highly engaging content.

Additionally, AdPlay recently launched Veedly, a dedicated solution focused on the distribution of on-demand multimedia content from the world of sports. Veedly is currently collaborating with the official digital channels of Lega Serie A, allowing for content distribution of various kinds, including highlights of all the Serie A TIM matches, and Coppa Italia Frecciarossa for the next two sports seasons.

The aggregated consideration is a combination of cash and shares. In total, 580,470 treasury shares were transferred to the selling shareholder. The  transaction is effective as of 11th November 2022. AdPlay generated approximately €12 million gross revenue in 2021.

This announcement follows various previous acquisitions in 2022, as Azerion continues to execute on its growth strategy. So far this year, Azerion has acquired an estimated annualised revenue in the range of €100 million to €125 million for a total aggregated consideration (combination of cash and shares) in the range of €90 million to €100 million.