News
LDC backs fast-growing AdTech firm Precise TV for US expansion with £21m minority investment
7 Jan 2025
LDC, the private equity investor which is part of Lloyds Banking Group, has made a £21m minority investment in Precise TV, the contextual video AdTech platform driving business outcomes for brands, to support its international expansion.
Precise TV was founded in 2015 and operates globally through its teams in London, Los Angeles and New York, as well as its offices in Sydney, Australia and Salzburg, Austria. The award-winning contextual intelligence platform leverages a combination of proprietary machine learning models to connect brands and agencies to the video moments that matter across YouTube, Shorts, Facebook, TikTok, Connected TV and Mobile Gaming, driving lower funnel conversions for advertisers looking to limit media wastage.
Its proprietary tech platform uses AI to analyse millions of online videos, licensed data sources and its own proprietary panel data to build contextualised advertising campaigns for its clients, which includes global business and consumer brands such as LEGO, Moose Toys, Warner Bros, Paramount, Breville, Salesforce and ASICS.
Precise TV is Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) certified, and was named a 2024 Google Premier Partner after meeting the rigorous requirements of the recently revamped Google Partners program. Precise TV is also the world’s first and leading KidSafe COPPA certified YouTube advertising platform.
Following LDC’s investment, the business plans to continue to build its AI capabilities and scale its presence in the US, which currently accounts for over half of revenues, as well as diversifying further into other markets, such as gaming.
LDC is backing Precise TV’s existing management team, led by co-founders and co-CEOs Nadav Shmuel and Christian Dankl, Chief Commercial Officer Denis Crushell and Chief Technology Officer Peter Stöckl.
The transaction was led by David Andrews, Dan Gluckman and Eliza Tracey in LDC’s London office. David and Dan will both join the board as Non-Executive Directors, alongside former Google executive Jen Thompson who joins as a board advisor and brings more than 18 years’ experience.
Nadav Shmuel, co-CEO of Precise TV, said: “This is an important milestone for the business. Since we founded the company almost a decade ago, we’ve focused on building the best contextualised advertising tech stack in the market for our clients. With LDC’s support, we can continue investing to stay ahead of the curve whilst taking our proposition to a wider market, with a particular focus on the US where we see a significant growth opportunity.”
LDC’s track record in backing technology and media businesses really stood out for us, and we’ve already built an excellent relationship with David, Dan, Eliza and the team at LDC. They clearly understand the scale of the opportunity available to us and we can’t wait to get started.”
Christian Dankl, co-CEO of Precise TV, said: “Demand for our proprietary offering has increased rapidly in recent years with the widespread decline of cookie-based advertising and the growth of video streaming platforms led by YouTube. We now have more resources to invest and bolster our leading role driving bottom-line business outcomes for brands through contextual video advertising.”
David Andrews, Partner at LDC, said: “In under 10 years, Nadav, Christian and the entire management team at Precise TV have built a highly distinctive and scalable proposition in the AdTech market which has underpinned the firm’s strong growth to date. Their entrepreneurialism and ambition is impressive and just the type of management team we love to back. With demand for contextualised advertising solutions set to continue growing, this is the perfect time to invest for scale.”
LDC has a successful track record in the media sector. In the last decade, the firm has invested £405m into fast-growing businesses across sub-sectors from film, TV and broadcast to advertising, PR, marketing, events and gaming. This includes backing full-service digital marketing company Croud in 2019 to help fund its US expansion, helping the firm grow its US business to a third of revenues within its five-year partnership.
LDC was advised by JEGI CLARITY (corporate finance), Squire Patton Boggs (legal), BDO (financial and tax due diligence), PwC Strategy& (commercial due diligence), Coppett Hill (go-to-market due diligence) and EY (tax).
Precise TV was advised by SI Partners (corporate finance) and Keystone Law (legal).