Adform, one of the world’s leading independent advertising technology platforms, has announced GRO Capital has injected significant funds in the company as it announces new shareholders.
GRO Capital will partner with existing shareholder VIA equity and Adform’s management team to continue the growth as a global independent industry leading company.
This announcement coincides with the decision to promote Bartosz Malinowski (featured image) to VP of sales for CEE and APAC regions.
Malinowski, who previously served as VP for Eastern Europe and the Middle East, has been with Adform since 2014 joining from Adobe and prior to that, IBM.
His technical background and successful track record within multinational IT and adtech sales has contributed to his success in senior management roles.
Malinowski will be responsible for overseeing the development of business opportunities through newly expanded Asian regions and across central Europe.
He said: “At such a turbulent time in adtech, I am delighted to be part of a company bucking that trend and am keen to lead business opportunities for Adform across Asia and Europe.
“I’m looking forward to continuing to progress Adform’s presence and deliver exciting solutions and campaigns for our global and local clients.”
Adform reveals this strategic financing against the backdrop of global uncertainty across the advertising ecosystem.
The investment enables Adform to offer a transparent alternative to the walled gardens provided by large technology players.
The ad tech company has long bucked the trend of feature growth through acquisition, instead focusing on building their entire technology platform in-house.
This ground-up approach means data flows seamlessly between all parts of the platform, more efficient workflows, and consistent metrics across the platform.
The ‘built as one platform’ approach has allowed Adform to define the Integrated Advertising Platform (IAP) as a new category which directly addresses many of the critical issues facing the current digital advertising ecosystem.
The integrated advertising platform consists of tools supporting the full digital planning process starting with Ad Serving and robust creative, followed by activation through the demand side platform with added targeting and insights possible through the data management platform.
Adform also welcomes Lars Dybkjær (managing partner at GRO Capital), Lars Lunde partner at GRO Capital) and Torben Munch (former CEO of Itiviti Group AB and COO of SimCorp A/S) to the board of directors.
Munch will also take on the role of Chairman.
Adform also continues its market expansion having opened offices in seven new markets in the last 12 months, including: Dubai, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Estonia, Romania, and China.
To date, the company has grown to around 850 employees and operates in 27 countries, expanding to serve global clients and attract new international customers.
Adform co-founder and CEO, Gustav Mellentin said: “We are very excited about the partnership with GRO Capital and look forward to collaborating to fulfil our joint vision, serving large advertisers, agencies and publishers with our leading software platform across data, creative and trading.
“GRO Capital represents a unique combination of capital and competencies that can support us in our journey to become the leading independent full stack ad tech provider with a global footprint.”
Lars Dybkjær said: “We have followed Adform for many years and are very impressed with its product and blue-chip customer base, which includes some of the largest advertisers and agencies globally.
“This investment is perfectly aligned with GRO Capital’s strategy of investing in outstanding technology companies supporting their transformation and growth ambitions.
“Gustav Mellentin has built a very strong team and assembled a deep bench of highly skilled and ambitious individuals.”
He added: “We really look forward to helping the team build on existing strengths to leverage their position as the leading independent full stack software provider with a high level of transparency, leading data security and privacy standards and strong customer support.”
