Vibrant Media primed for IPO; eyes acquisitions, founding CEO says

NEW YORK — November 03, 2010 (MergerMarket) — Vibrant Media, a New York City-based provider of contextual advertising, has "all the elements in place" for a public offering if it were deemed appropriate, founding CEO Doug Stevenson told this news service.

Vibrant is interested in hearing from financial advisers in the space regarding its acquisition strategy, but not for a possible liquidation event, Stevenson said.

"When it comes to Vibrant going public, we know the bankers we [would] want to select," he said. "We're happy with the shortlist."

The company's new CFO, Jeff Babka, has "great experience" navigating the IPO market, taking NeuStar public in 2005, he said. More recently, Babka was CFO at Sophos, an IT security firm that was on track for an IPO when it was sold to Apax Partners for USD 830m in May. A recent media report referred to Babka as a "well-known IPO specialist." Stevenson declined to comment on the timing of a potential public offering or on whether Vibrant had received any M&A overtures. "We are really fortunate with our business," Stevenson said. "We have that [IPO] option to consider."

Founded in 2000, Vibrant is a debt-free "USD 100m-plus business" that has been profitable "for a long time," Stevenson said. The 250-person company has raised approximately USD 27m in funding and has no plans for an additional capital raise, he said. Vibrant has seen its users in the US increase by nearly 50% year-over-year to 130m monthly uniques from 87m in September 2009, according to comScore. Globally, Vibrant’s monthly unique users have increased to 200m from 135m during the same period a year ago.

"Our focus is on building out our portfolio," Stevenson said, noting that the company is in the midst of discussions with possible targets. "We're already speaking to some companies that might be available for us to acquire now."

As it examines M&A targets, Vibrant is considering businesses across three categories, Stevenson said. The first is pure-content companies, which allow Vibrant to monetize content more effectively than the ad networks, he said. "We like companies like Associated Content," he added. "Those kinds of businesses have tremendous organic growth in terms of page views." In May, Associated Content agreed to be acquired by Yahoo for a reported USD 90m.

Vibrant is also taking a look at ad technology companies, Stevenson said, especially those that don't have a commercial team in place to take a product to market. Finally, the company is focused on geographic expansion, he said, listing ad networks in Brazil or Japan as examples of potential targets. Vibrant currently works with 4,500 publishers, and wants to expand its publisher relationships worldwide, he said.

The company also is interested in developing additional product lines for advertisers. "We bridge the gap between search and display," Stevenson said. "The best way to view what we do is … [as a] contextual platform that delivers keyword targeting with branded rich media experiences for users." Vibrant's investors include Fortis and ABS Capital Partners.

by Katherine Hunt in San Francisco

About Vibrant
Vibrant is a world leader in contextual technology aligning billions of words across the Internet with relevant video, information, tools, and advertising. With over 4,500 premium publishers, reaching 200 million unique users per month (comScore, September 2010), Vibrant gives top brand marketers the opportunity to deliver highly targeted advertisements within premium Web content and offers publishers premium editorial tools to re-circulate users throughout their websites. Vibrant works with top brand advertisers such as Microsoft, Unilever, Warner Bros and AT&T. The company was founded in 2000 and has offices in London, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Hamburg, Munich and Dusseldorf. Vibrant's rapid growth has been recognized by the Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast 50 lists. In 2010, the company was named by Advertising Age as one of the "Best Places to Work in Marketing & Media." Vibrant Co-founder and CEO Doug Stevenson was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2010 for Metro New York. For more information, visit: www.vibrantmedia.com, www.vibrantmedia.co.uk, www.vibrantmedia.de, www.vibrantmedia.fr.