Startups bet on the open web at London’s ad tech forum

The AdTech Economic Forum — held last week in the historic Royal Institution, where science and technology have flourished since 1799 — is a launchpad for startups and a place for investors to find the next big thing in ad tech.

The programmatic supply chain, ripe for reinvention, emerged as a prime topic. Meanwhile, S4Capital Founder and Chairman Martin Sorrell pointed out that a handful of platforms seem to control the majority of digital ad spend globally, a challenge for marketers who are hungry for new growth drivers.

Startups and their investors alike zeroed in on the open internet as that driver.

“We’re after the new wave of innovation, like big data, programmatic, new ways of having access to content like connected TV [CTV],” said Claire Houry, general partner at Ventech, a venture capital firm.

The supply path opportunity

Many exhibiters were focused on enabling quality media buys by reducing supply-side complexity or providing more robust data to inform media investment.

Swym, AdExchanger’s “best industry start-up" of 2024, presented its algorithmic approach to curating media supply and optimizing bid decisioning. Meanwhile, Anonymised — which aims to minimize ad spend wasted on subpar inventory — shared its data-verification technology to help brands vet publishers.

C Wire grabbed attention with its “AI-driven, cookieless SSP,” sparking a discussion about the future of identity. One executive from an alternative identity provider told The Current that “identity is always there, even though it’s not shiny like AI” and predicted identity will take on growing importance in CTV, audio and apps.

AI: efficiency and caution

AI advancements could make the difference for brands, said Sorrell, like a major automotive client that held onto its media budget after implementing AI efficiencies across the organization.

Still, Houry cautioned startup founders against relying too heavily on AI hype. “Is AI creating a barrier to entry? A USP [unique selling proposition]? Otherwise, I don’t care,” she said.

Some startups spied chances to create more ad opportunities from existing media. They’re aiming to tap into advertisers’ growing demand for new investment options, driven by changes in search advertising and brand safety concerns on social media. AdBridge, for example, is trying to squeeze more out of publishers’ content with an ad format that mixes native and contextual elements.

Nodals’ ad network, powered by custom bidding algorithms, focused instead on helping publishers take control of their data and get more insights out of it.

“The biggest and most important data providers are media owners,” said Aly Nurmohamed, Nodals founder and CEO. “The biggest media owners are the walled gardens. But on the open internet, quality media owners like newspapers, CTV, audio, and retail media also have amazing content and data.”