Ad software company sets up new emerging products unit

Advertising software company VideoAmp said it acquired IronGrid Data Services, which processes big data, and made a deal with Vizio’s Inscape, which will give it connected TV viewership and ad exposure data to go with the set-top box data is has been using.

Video Amp said it was setting up a Data & Emerging Products division, which will offer set-top box and automated content recognition data processing, custom audience segments for planning, targeting and measurement and co-mingled TV viewership data.

“Acquiring IronGrid is a major, strategic step forward in our mission to unify linear TV and digital video advertising,” said Ross McCray, co-founder and CEO, VideoAmp. “From targeted, index-based advertising to programmatic insertion or true cross-screen measurement and attribution, the need for clean, reliable, household-level TV viewership data has never been higher. We are pleased to meet those needs for the ecosystem.”

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The deal comes at a time when a number of new companies are crunching audience data for TV networks, media buyers and advertisers.

“Everybody is announcing these initiatives and the truth of the matter is that a lot of these announcements are really frameworks and underneath that framework, new technology is actually still required,” said Jay Prasad, the company’s chief strategy officer. “Some of these companies will have a strategy of what they are going to do, but they’re still going to need either to develop or license or partner for those capabilities to become real.”

IronGrid is a small company based in Boston that has expertise in processing set-top box data so that it can be used in data bases, software and other data products.

It will also be able to combine set-top box data and smart TV data from Inscape to create a holistic view of TV audiences that networks need to compete with digital media.

“This announcement is an important piece of our larger partnership with VideoAmp,” said Jodie McAfee, senior VP of sales and marketing at Inscape. “Integrating with the new Data & Emerging Products division enables us to provide access to the most accurate TV viewer intelligence available, helping to reshape the way all future TV and cross-screen video campaigns are targeted, transacted, optimized and measured.”

With the new division launch, VideoAmp’s Nick Chakalos has been named senior VP and general manager and IronGrid’s president and co-founder Randy Laughlin has been named VP, data.

VideoAmp is backed by Mediaocean, RTL Group and six other top venture capital firms.