Ad Software Company Viant Valued at $2.5 Billion In Nasdaq Debut

Shares of Viant Technology Inc jumped 76% in their market debut on Wednesday, giving the advertising software company a market capitalization of $2.53 billion.

Viant’s shares opened at $44, well above their initial public offering price of $25 per share. The company offered 10 million shares in the IPO, raising about $250 million.

Founded in 1998 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russ Vanderhook, Viant offers a cloud-based platform that allows ad buyers to plan, create, execute and measure their digital advertising investments.

“For us, it was really seizing on this transition that’s happening within digital advertising, a move away from cookies or device tracking, more towards people-based,” Chief Operating Officer Chris Vanderhook told Reuters.

People-based marketing uses an individual’s identifiable information, such as an e-mail address, to track their activity across devices and browsers and it has proved to be more effective than cookie-based marketing.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Vanderhook said marketers are selecting people-based platforms for their advertising needs.

For the year ended Dec. 31, 2019, Viant reported a profit of $9.9 million on revenue of $164.9 million.

BofA Securities and UBS Investment Bank were the lead underwriters for Viant’s offering.

(Corrects CEO’s first name to Tim from Chris in paragraph 6 and COO’s first name to Chris from Tim in paragraph 4; Also corrects date to Dec. 31 from Dec.

– Reuters