Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) today announced that its advertising technology partner company Spongecell has merged with New York City-based Flashtalking, a privately held, global platform for online advertising management and data analysis. The combined company will operate under the Flashtalking brand and offer brands and agencies the technology and scale to deliver impactful, data-driven creative advertising. Terms of the all-stock transaction were not disclosed. Investment bank Needham & Company acted as a strategic advisor to Spongecell.
"We believe the Flashtalking-Spongecell merger creates a strong platform that can serve a global market with dynamic, data-driven creative content for display, video, social and native advertising," said Stephen T. Zarrilli, Safeguard President and CEO. "We are impressed by Flashtalking's management team, growth prospects, financial capitalization and ultimate monetization potential. We believe that this business combination allows the product attributes of Spongecell to grow within a well-capitalized growth-oriented organization and provide Safeguard shareholders with an opportunity for a meaningful long-term return."
Safeguard deployed a total of $18.0 million in growth capital in Spongecell beginning in January 2012and held 23% primary ownership position in the New York City-based provider of digital advertising for all devices and formats. Safeguard previously characterized Spongecell as "expansion stage" with annual revenues in the range of $5 million to $20 million.
Safeguard maintains one board seat of the combined company and has an initial ownership interest of 10.3%. Safeguard's interest in Flashtalking will continue to be reflected as a partner company and characterized as a "high traction stage" enterprise with annual revenues in excess of $20 million.
About Safeguard ScientificsHistorically, Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE) has provided capital and relevant expertise to fuel the growth of technology-driven businesses. Safeguard has a distinguished track record of fostering innovation and building market leaders that spans more than six decades. For more information, please visit www.safeguard.com or follow us on Twitter @safeguard.
About Spongecell
Spongecell is a digital advertising-technology company focused on integrating data, machine learning and automation to enhance the creative process, simply, efficiently and at scale. Spongecell enables marketers to deliver beautiful, relevant and engaging brand content to prospects and customers across all devices and formats.
About Flashtalking
Flashtalking equips advertisers and their agencies to create, activate and measure data-driven advertising across digital channels and formats. Our programmatic creative and analytics platform unifies audience, media and creative to deliver personalized messaging while optimizing performance of media and creative. With cookie-less tracking, connected log-file and algorithmic attribution, we can coordinate, augment and analyze data signals to support our clients where data, relevant creative, and unbiased measurement intersect with expertise, service and a deep partner ecosystem. Founded in the U.K., headquartered in New York, Flashtalking has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Leeds, Cologne, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Sydney. For more information visit www.flashtalking.com.
