- Data collection company LiveRamp is acquiring data clean room software provider Habu in a money and stock transaction valued at roughly $200 million, the businesses announced.
- The acquisition will help LiveRamp offer data collaboration at scale, across clouds and walled gardens, enabling brands and media corporations to securely share first-party data with business partners and publishers to create more personalized marketing campaigns.
- The deal underscores the continued importance of data clean rooms and tools that promote secure data collaboration as Google has begun its long-delayed strategy of deprecating cookies.
As the cookieless future draws nearer, brands and agencies are exploring alternative tactics to discover consumers and gain insights into their behavior — crucial steps in creating the form of personalized campaigns many have come to expect. Among the alternatives are data clean rooms, the cloud-based secure systems that enable data sharing and collaboration in a secure, pseudo-anonymized setting.
One-third of corporations are currently using data clean rooms extensively, and roughly 90% expect their use of data clean rooms to extend over the following 12 months, based on a recent study from Deloitte Digital. Meanwhile, 70% of corporations planning to make use of data clean rooms expect to outsource a few of the implementation and operations. LiveRamp’s acquisition of Habu is a bid to capture a bigger share of the growing data clean space.
“Through this acquisition, we are going to further empower our customers to unlock insights, use cases, and revenue streams by seamlessly connecting data and deepening measurement, across any platform or partner they like,” said Scott Howe, CEO of LiveRamp, in a press release.
The acquisition will enable LiveRamp’s customers to streamline and simplify cross-cloud collaboration, achieve a single view of measurement, access enhanced identity and connectivity solutions, and advance AI initiatives through greater access to coach and optimize machine learning, based on press details.
Over the long term, the acquisition is anticipated so as to add value through greater cross-selling and upselling, recent customer acquisition, accelerated global expansion and recent use cases across the enterprise.
Under the deal’s terms, LiveRamp will acquire Habu for roughly $200 million, including $170 million in money and the rest in the shape of stock. An additional $16 million of restricted stock can be prolonged to retain Habu’s employees. LiveRamp expects the acquisition to deliver $18 million in revenue in its 2025 fiscal yr.
Along with the acquisition announcement, LiveRamp provided preliminary results for its third quarter of fiscal yr 2024, which ended on Dec. 31, 2023. For the quarter, the corporate expects to report $174 million in revenue, a rise of 10% year-on-year and ahead of the previous guidance of $165 million. The company’s operating income is anticipated to be $15 million, ahead of the prior expectation of $8 million.
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