Video ad company Teads raises $47M in debt, plans acquisitions and further Asia expansion

Video advertising platform Teads has raised a further $47 million in debt financing. Providing the capital are a bank syndicate made up of BNPP, Bank of China, HSBC, Banque Palatine, and BPI.

The European company says the new finance will be used to acquire ad tech companies in possession of technology that will consolidate what it claims is Teads’ “leading position” in the video advertising industry, and to fund further expansion into the Asian market.

Teads specialises in so-called “outstream” ads, that is video ads that reside outside of video content, such as placed in an article between two paragraphs of text. Or, put another way, video ads that potentially perform better and are an alternative to video pre-rolls.

It last raised £20 million (~$30m) in equity and debt financing back in January 2015. At the time the company was talking up its IPO prospects, but a public offering has yet to materialise. Hence today’s new financing.

With that said, Teads says it’s been profitable for the last four years. Meanwhile, M&A targets for the company are said to include smaller ad tech startups developing technologies that Teads can leverage to complement its offering to premium publishers and advertisers.

A little history for those of you who aren’t familiar with the company. Teads was actually founded via a merger of two European video adtech companies: Teads and Ebuzzing.