FreeWheel acquires Beeswax

Comcast-owned FreeWheel has announced that it will acquire SaaS advertising company Beeswax.

The company said that the acquisition will expand its current programmatic marketplace capabilities across all forms of TV and video advertising including CTV and VOD on set-top boxes.

Beeswax offers programmatic advertising capabilities through its bidding stack which it calls Bidder-as-a-Service (Baas). It counts the likes of Twitch, Uber and Legendary among its customers.

Freewheel said that interest in Beeswax had been inspired by the “exponential growth of programmatic transactions” and a need for “more customisable and flexible bidding technologies to serve a diversifying user base.

Beeswax’s tech will complement FreeWheel’s existing programmatic offerings, with the Baas tech giving the company’s customers access to broader pools of inventory.

Dave Clark, general manager, FreeWheel, said: “Together, FreeWheel and Beeswax can further enhance how television operates. As the ecosystem becomes increasingly complex, sellers and buyers of media want similar capabilities: great automation, simplicity, and the ability to manage data-driven campaigns across hundreds of endpoints. By incorporating Beeswax’s technology into FreeWheel’s offering, we can deliver even more value to clients of both companies, helping them better navigate and succeed in this new landscape.”

Ari Paparo, CEO, Beeswax, said: “We’re looking forward to integrating our BaaS platform into FreeWheel’s global infrastructure to accelerate our vision of giving our customers greater flexibility, transparency, and control over their media buying. Now, together with Freewheel, we can deliver scale across all programmatic channels, including advanced TV advertising.”

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in January 2021.