Brand safety marketing provider Grapeshot, an Albion Capital backed company, has been acquired by US tech firm Oracle for around £325 million.

Albion invested £2.9 million in Grapeshot-a provider that delivers segmented data to around 5,000 marketers-in 2014, which will give investors a 10x return on their money following its exit. IQ Capital and Draper Esprit were also investors.

Grapeshot grows

Grapeshot had been growing by over 100 per cent year on year since the 2014 investment. The programme generates 38 billion programmatic ad impressions a month. Turnover was £9 million in 2016 but had an operating loss of nearly £2 million, according to its latest filing on Companies House. Business Weekly said the deal will add tens of millions to Grapeshot’s CEO John Synder wealth.

Robert Whitby-Smith, partner at Albion Capital said, ‘John Synder and Team Grapeshot built a category leader in contextual intelligence marketing in a highly capital efficient manner resulting in an outstanding return for all. It has been a pleasure working with IQ Capital and Draper Esprit and we wish Team Grapeshot the very best in the next chapter of the Grapeshot story.’

Enterprise fund sees biggest gains

According to reports filed by Albion, Grapeshot shares held in its Enterprise VCT fund will see the largest share price rise of 8.6p per share, with no deductions against escrow. Its development fund also saw an increase of 5.1p per share respectively.

In a statement on its website, Oracle said the acquisition will expand its ability to improve marketing outcomes for its partners worldwide by adding the important dimension of context to the data cloud’s services in audiences and measurement.

The integration will help marketers gain better control of where its advertisements appear on the web. There has been a growing issue of mainstream companies seeing ads appears next to controversial content from terrorist groups and others. The online marketing industry has been facing greater pressures in the form of upcoming privacy laws which could limit how company’s use audiences’ online profiles to market products. The move by Oracle will be seen as a statement of intent to remain a relevant and useful platform for marketers.

It would also extend global audience reach by targeting the most relevant context, including late-breaking news and trending themes, to complement Oracle data cloud’s custom audience segments.

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