M&A and funding? AdTech is back, baby.
CTV adtech company tvScientific today announced a $25.5 million Series B round to advance its vision of “Performance TV” (Axios had the scoop). NewRoad Capital Partners led the round, with participation from Roku, Second Alpha Partners, and existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, S4S Ventures, and Progress Ventures. Adding this to previous rounds listed on Crunchbase (napkin math is still math), the company’s total funding now sits just under $57 million.
To recap: tvScientific offers a self-serve platform for CTV advertising with a cost-per-outcome (CPO) model designed to simplify buying and “prove the actual value of TV advertising.” Beyond measurement, the platform also allows advertisers to buy and target ads with no minimum spend required. Clients include Foot Locker and Weight Watchers.
Why This Matters:
CTV, like legacy TV before it, has primarily been the domain of big brands, while smaller advertisers, who value the transparency and performance of channels like search and social, have been slower to adopt.
tvScientific wants to change that by offering what it calls “radical data transparency” in measurement, using metrics that mirror what you see across digital-native platforms. To do that, the company delivers CTV ads, records associated IP addresses, tracks actions taken on devices connected to those IPs, and then analyzes exposure and outcome data to measure ad performance.
Experts React:
Our Take:
Roku’s investment here is interesting. The streaming giant has been vocal about democratizing access to CTV ad-buying, making it easier for midmarket and SMB advertisers to get in on the action. For that to work, advertisers need proof that their dollars are well spent—and better performance measurement is key to keeping them in the game.
As bigger brands continue shifting more ad dollars into CTV, they, too, are demanding better data on performance. This is where tvScientific’s pitch comes in, and it’s a compelling one, with the proof being the latest round and the backers involved.
