What is Infillion, really?
That was our first question after seeing the company acquire Catalina, long known as a shopper marketing and retail data business. Catalina uses a massive real-time database of purchase/transaction history to serve personalized ads across digital and in-store channels, along with closed-loop measurement that ties the ads directly to sales.
OK, now back to Infillion. Well, what they are is a bit more complicated.
Infillion is an adtech company that has made a series of deliberate bets to build what it calls a “composable” platform (meaning modular pieces that can be assembled and activated together, rather than a single monolithic system). It has brought together MediaMath’s DSP, TrueX for CTV and interactive video, Gimbal’s location technology for outcomes measurement, and now Catalina, which adds retail intelligence for targeting and closed-loop measurement.
All of these components are designed to work in tandem with Infillion’s AI agent, which is positioned as the connective layer across the stack.
Why This Matters:
“This Changes Everything,” reads the release. Dramatic! But Infillion may be in a position to back it up.
According to the company, “Catalina is the only deterministic purchase intelligence network of its kind,” meaning it relies on actual transaction data, not modeled or inferred signals. Catalina processes 11 billion annual shopping trips across 70 major retail banners. Infillion describes this as “ground truth” data that powers closed-loop marketing across retail and digital channels.
Infillion now has exclusive access to that data. In an era when adtech platforms risk being viewed as commoditized “pipes” unless they own differentiated AI, media, or data, this looks like a smart buy.
Experts React:
There were some interesting reactions on X. Ari Paparo wrote, “Seems like the deal catapults [Infillion] into the same conversation with Zeta, Viant, and others.”
Ben Kaplan, CMO at Nexxen, also weighed in with his take:
Our Take:
Owning data matters. The companies that control differentiated datasets tend to have more leverage in the market. No deal terms were disclosed, but strategically, this appears aligned with where adtech is heading.
We also see parallels with other recent data-focused acquisitions, including companies like Lotame and LiveIntent. Over the past year, DMPs, onboarding platforms, and audience data providers have increasingly been absorbed into larger stacks. The pattern is clear: data infrastructure sits upstream, feeding the AI and activation layers downstream. So, we expect more deals to own the upstream portion in the coming months.
(If you don’t understand the image for this post, see here:)
