Big News! Experian Acquires Audigent

Broadscale is delighted to announce the acquisition of our portfolio company Audigent by Experian.  As Audigent’s largest and first institutional investor in 2016, we could not be prouder of Founder/CEO Drew Stein and the Audigent team for scaling its platform to positively change the way personal data is used in digital advertising.

The advertising market has been undergoing rapid change to protect users’ data privacy as it transitions from a cookie-based past to an opt-in data future.  This transition has been accelerated by landmark privacy legislation in Europe and California, which has empowered consumers to control how we want our browsing and personal data to be used.

The deprecation of third-party cookies and the ascendency of first-party data may seem like an obvious trend today (see: Google’s Privacy Sandbox), but it was not in 2016.  Audigent recognized early on that a new privacy-first data ecosystem was needed to rebalance the needs of consumers, brands, and publishers.  Curated first-party data generates greater return on ad spend, while better protecting consumer privacy and allowing content creators to connect with those audiences that want to hear from them. 

Consistent with our investment philosophy of Disruption for Good, this mission is what compelled us to invest in Audigent eight years ago as part of the company’s Seed Round.  Andrew Shapiro joined the Board and we subsequently invested in each of the company’s financing rounds and helped Audigent partner with important strategics, including Warner Music Group, which became a key investor.

"Broadscale saw the promise of our mission to build a more consumer-friendly data ecosystem from the early days as one of our first institutional investors and supported our growth throughout the years, becoming our largest investor and playing an active role on our Board for the past eight years,” said Drew Stein.  “We are grateful to Andrew Shapiro and Pete Schork for all of their support in helping in key moments as we transitioned from startup to industry leader."    

With Audigent’s new partners at Experian, we are confident that its technology can scale to become a market-wide innovation with positive impact on industry and society. 

Congratulations, Audigent and all involved!

The Broadscale Team