Digital ad tech firm Centro is already
putting the $30 million it raised just two months ago to work. The company on Thursday announced its acquisition of GraphScience, a social ad-buying and optimization company.
Following its $30 million round from May, the company said it planned “to acquire businesses that help it grow and diversify what it can do for the middle of the media-buying marketplace,” Real-Time Dailyreported.
That’s exactly what they have done. And now the company projects it will manage nearly $400 million in digital ad spend this year.
The move to acquire GraphScience adds to Centro’s growing ad tech stack, which already featured demand-side platforms (DSPs) for both buyers and sellers as well as “programmatic direct” technology. The company now boasts that it “combine[s] automated guaranteed, RTB and social into one programmatic ad-buying platform.”
GraphScience’s algorithm “analyze[s] an ongoing campaign on Facebook and predict[s] which ads and targeting will perform better as the campaign continues,” a Centro representative explained to Real-Time Daily.
Shawn Riegsecker, CEO of Centro, said in a prepared statement that the addition of GraphScience's social buying and optimization tech lets Centro now automate "the research, buying and execution of all digital inventory types."
GraphScience is a Facebook Marketing Partner focused on servicing retail and e-commerce marketers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.