Shares in private equity investment trust Oakley Capital Investments (OCI), edged higher following the announcement of a $35 million investment in Seedtag, a leader in contextual advertising in EMEA and Latin America.
This deal is in line with Oakley’s focus on areas with structural growth prospects. Oakley is focused on three sectors: technology, education and consumer.
It targets businesses and sub-sectors within these areas that have structural growth opportunities.
One of the trends driving this growth is the accelerating shift to online for customers and businesses. This has resulted in a marked increase in the demand for digital advertising.
There has been an exponential increase in the growth of contextual advertising which helps brands deliver digital advertising that is directly relevant to the content that consumers are reading.
The contextual advertising market is currently valued at $4.5 billion and is expected to experience double digit growth to 2025.
This growth is being driven by the increasing importance being placed on consumer privacy and the shift away from the use of third party cookies. These factors have forced brands and agencies to find reliable alternatives that enable them to understand consumer interests while targeting priority audiences.
WHAT SEEDTAG BRINGS TO THE TABLE
Seedtag’s machine learning engine can analyse 10,000 articles a minute, and provides human like understanding of text and images.
Critically Seedtag’s software does not rely on the use of cookies. Seedtag's revenue is forecast to increase 60% this year to $80m. The company has an impressive array of clients including Adidas and Universal. Advertising agencies WPP (WPP) and Havas are also clients.
Today’s announcement regarding Seedtag follows on from a recent set of strong results for Oakley Capital. These revealed an annual total NAV (net asset value) return of 26% and annual average EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) growth in the portfolio of 35%. Today’s announcement emphasises how Oakley provides investors with liquid access to the attractive private equity market.
