Integral Ad Science: Acquisition will mean investment in Asia

The sale of a majority stake in Integral Ad Science (IAS) to to Vista Equity Partners, announced earlier this week, will allow the verification vendor to continue its investments in APAC, according to APAC MD Stephen Dolan. 

According to IAS, Vista Equity Partners will help the ad fraud detection company improve its operational capabilities while providing capital for future investments and expanding into 13 more countries.

“Our industry faces a multitude of brand safety, viewability, and ad fraud challenges in Asia and across the world," Dolan said. "The announcement of the acquisition by Vista is great news. APAC has been a huge source of growth and investment for the company and with Vista’s support and resources IAS will be able to continue to invest in the Asia Pacific Market and build solutions that can help protect and grow of customers brands.”

First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the acquisition comes within a year after Oracle acquired Moat to make it part of the Oracle Data Cloud and Providence Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in DoubleVerify.

According to IAS, neutrality was a big selling point.

While the acquisition details have not been disclosed, CrunchBase has recorded $116 million worth of funding raised by IAS since being founded in 2009.

This marks the third similar investment by Vista Equity Partners with regards to advertising technology, the first being Mediaocean in 2015, followed by Marketo in 2016.