There’s always an adtech angle.
According to a New York Times review of the “Epstein files” — documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender known for his powerful network — Epstein and Howard Lutnick, the Trump administration’s commerce secretary, both invested in the same adtech company, Ad/Fin, in 2013.
The investments were made through affiliates and third-party entities: Southern Trust Company in Epstein’s case and a Cantor Fitzgerald affiliate for Lutnick. Epstein invested first, followed soon after by Lutnick.
Per NYT’s report:
“…both men signed on for an apparently ill-fated investment in the private company AdFin Solutions Inc., which sold itself as offering cutting-edge intelligence to buyers of online advertising … The investment did not appear to work out well…”
For those who don’t remember, Ad/Fin, which launched in 2012, tried to build a Bloomberg Terminal for the online ad industry by analyzing log-file data. But its requests for transaction data from agencies reportedly rubbed parts of the industry the wrong way. The company eventually flamed out and shuttered in October 2019. (Epstein was arrested earlier that July.)
Why This Matters:
As AdExchanger noted at the time: “Ad/Fin made enemies of the agency holding companies when it teamed up with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Ebiquity on a 2016 report uncovering fees in the programmatic supply chain.”
Speaking of 2016, you can access Ad/Fin’s 2016 investor deck, which is in the Epstein files, here. See this slide, as well.
There’s somewhat of an irony here. A company pushing for greater transparency in programmatic media-buying fees was quietly funded, in part, by Epstein, whose signature appears on Ad/Fin investment documents. The investment was made roughly five years after his 2008 guilty plea in Florida to charges related to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Experts React:
In 2018, the CEO of Ad/Fin wrote to an Epstein associate working with Southern Trust, seeking funding and sharing financing details.
“We would love to have ST get involved in this round,” the email reads. “So please review the information and let me know if you want to discuss.” The conversation was, ultimately, forwarded directly to Epstein, according to the document dump.
Anyway, here are some lighter X posts about the (bizarre) situation:
Our Take:
It would be worth hearing from Ad/Fin’s former execs how the Epstein Seed A investment came together and whether they were aware of his past at the time. Fair? Not far?
For what it’s worth, based on the public documents, Ad/Fin does not appear to have interacted directly with Epstein and primarily worked with intermediaries. Still, it does look like he was a key investor.
