MCAP Acquisition Corp. SPAC Merger Partner, AdTheorent Offers Update On Continued Momentum Since SPAC Transaction

Author: Benzinga Newsdesk | December 17, 2021 08:05am

Company achieved strong financial growth, profitability, and award-winning tech and product innovations

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AdTheorent Holding Company, LLC (“AdTheorent”), a leading programmatic digital advertising company using advanced machine learning technology and privacy-forward solutions to deliver measurable value for advertisers and marketers, and MCAP Acquisition Corporation (“MCAP”) (NASDAQ:MACQ), a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by an affiliate of Monroe Capital LLC (“Monroe Capital”), today provided an update on AdTheorent’s continued momentum since the announcement of its transaction. AdTheorent is consistently recognized as a leader in its industry and over the past four months it has seen extremely strong business momentum (49% year-over-year growth for the nine months ended September 30, 2021) and has maintained its “Rule of 50+” company status. During the period, AdTheorent also raised its full-year 2021 guidance twice and won multiple awards, in addition to its other impressive achievements.

“AdTheorent has a long-standing track record of financial success due to our ability to use machine learning and data science to drive business outcomes for advertisers in a privacy-forward manner. We are very pleased with our significant financial growth, innovation and all that we have accomplished since mid-year,” said James Lawson, CEO of AdTheorent. “AdTheorent’s differentiated privacy-forward machine learning approach is the future of the digital advertising industry and we are excited about the business and our growing market opportunity as we enter this next chapter.”

“When we began this journey with AdTheorent, we knew we had a unique opportunity to be involved with a high growth company, in a massive growing market, which is positioned to take advantage of shifting trends in privacy and digital advertising through its machine learning platform. Over the last several months the Company has shown its ability to add value to customers and differentiate itself in the market. Today, we are even more excited about the opportunity and the potential for the Company going forward,” said Zia Uddin, Co-President of MCAP. “Completing this transaction will represent an important milestone for AdTheorent, enhancing its ability to execute its growth plan on a bigger stage to showcase its best-in-class product offering.”

To discuss the company’s progress and future outlook, AdTheorent’s CEO Jim Lawson recently participated in an on-demand webcast, hosted by IPO Edge that can be accessed here.

Key Milestones

On December 9, 2021, AdTheorent and its majority equity holder, an affiliate of H.I.G. Capital LLC, announced an agreement to waive both the $140 million aggregate cash consideration closing condition and the $258.1 million available cash in trust closing condition contained in the business combination agreement (the “BCA”) in connection with the previously announced proposed business combination between MCAP and AdTheorent (the “Business Combination”). The Business Combination is expected to close promptly after the special meeting of MCAP stockholders to be held on December 21, 2021 (the “Special Meeting”). Click here for more information

On December 8, 2021, AdTheorent announced that it had nominated the following non-executive board members to join the AdTheorent board upon closing of the company’s previously announced business combination with MCAP: Kihara Kiarie, Chief Financial Officer at Bloomberg Media; Vineet Mehra, Chief Growth, Product, and CX Officer at Good Eggs; and Ben Tatta, President at Standard Media Index. These top adtech and marketing executives bring deep industry and brand experience and will help fuel AdTheorent’s future growth-oriented success. Click here for more information

On December 6, 2021, MCAP announced that the registration statement on Form S-4 (the “Registration Statement”), filed in connection with the Business Combination, was declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), and also announced a date of December 21, 2021, for the Special Meeting. The closing of the Business Combination is subject to approval by MCAP’s stockholders, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. The Business Combination is expected to close promptly after the Special Meeting. Upon closing, the combined company is expected to be listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “ADTH.” Click here for more information

On November 18, 2021, AdTheorent announced financial highlights for the third quarter ended September 30, 2021. Revenue increased 36% year-over-year to $39.5 million, driven by strength across a diverse portfolio of customer verticals. Adjusted Gross Profit* Margin was 65%, in line with the prior year. As a result, AdTheorent reiterated its total Revenue guidance of at least $161.6 million and Adjusted Gross Profit* guidance of at least $106.2 million. In addition, based on strong year-to-date performance the company increased its 2021 Adjusted EBITDA* guidance to in excess of $35.0 million, up from $30.6 million prior. Click here for more information

On August 24, 2021, AdTheorent announced financial highlights for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Revenue increased 89% versus the year-ago quarter to $39.9 million. Adjusted Gross Profit* Margin increased 94% versus the second quarter of 2020 to $26.7 million. As a result of the record first half 2021 revenue performance and positive business trends expected for the balance of the year, AdTheorent raised its guidance for full-year 2021 revenue to at least $161.6 million, versus $157.7 million prior, and raised its guidance for full-year 2021 Adjusted Gross Profit* to at least $106.2 million versus $102.4 million prior. Click here for more information

In July 2021, Monroe Capital announced that AdTheorent and MCAP entered into a definitive business combination agreement in which AdTheorent would be merged with MCAP. The announcement stated that upon closing of the transaction, the combined company will be named AdTheorent Holding Company, Inc., and it is expected to remain listed on the NASDAQ Capital Markets under the ticker ADTH. The business combination values AdTheorent at a $775 million enterprise value and at a pro forma market capitalization of approximately $1 billion, assuming a $10.00 per share price and no redemptions by MCAP stockholders. Click here for more information

*Non-GAAP measure; complete definitions of AdTheorent's non-GAAP measures are provided herein under "Non-GAAP Financial Measures."

Business Highlights

AdTheorent’s CTV revenue grew nearly 300% during the third quarter of 2021, as compared to the third quarter of 2020, fueled by expanded technical capabilities and new partnerships. This was driven in part by AdTheorent’s expanded relationship with LiveRamp to include CTV audience targeting, as well as deployment of new capabilities for targeting CTV devices of users who previously visited certain points of interest (for example, those who visited a specific retail store or sports venue within a given and customizable time range) powered by AdTheorent’s proprietary POI capability. Click here for more information

As part of AdTheorent’s ongoing efforts to drive vertical specialization to address customer needs, AdTheorent launched enhanced Sales Lift 360 and Destination 360 solutions in the third quarter, expanding its capabilities in the Dining, Retail and Travel verticals. These solutions allow AdTheorent’s clients to quantify the impact of their digital media investment on in-store or online sales at a given merchant, or across merchants within a target destination. Sales Lift 360 measures incremental sales to a specific merchant, while Destination 360 measures the incremental sales/spend at a specific geographic location for a Travel/Tourism client – for example, customer spend in a specific city as part of a campaign for a city’s tourism or travel board. Click here for more information

AdTheorent advanced its ambitious product and technology roadmap with the implementation of additional automation across AdTheorent’s campaign optimizer framework. These enhancements drove operational efficiencies in order to allow campaign managers to manage a larger campaign portfolio more effectively. AdTheorent’s optimizer framework allows users to optimize toward price, performance and delivery, applying fully customizable combinations of optimizers across tactics within individual campaign line-items to automate the balancing of campaign delivery against media spend and KPI goal (including “cost per action” or CPA goal types). For example, various optimizers are used to ensure positive outcomes across a spectrum of competing goals, including customer KPIs (e.g., online product sales), delivery goals (e.g., delivering desired campaign scale) and the cost of media and data. AdTheorent enhanced the automation of optimizer deployment and use to put greater power in the hands of operational teams and platform users, enabling those users to configure algorithm inputs and create custom optimizers that can be leveraged across the network to address various campaign scenarios. Click here for more information

Prestigious Awards

AdTheorent received Frost & Sullivan’s 2021 North American Advertising Product Leadership Award, making AdTheorent the first six-time recipient of the digital advertising leadership award in Frost & Sullivan’s 60-year history. Frost & Sullivan’s evaluation criteria favors companies who have a visionary understanding of the future and identify strategies to address new challenges and opportunities. Among the winning attributes Frost identifies are AdTheorent’s: (a) privacy-forward targeting approach not reliant on cookies; (b) ability to drive performance across advanced KPIs; (c) ability to leverage machine learning and data science to identify and bid on the optimal ad impressions for a given campaign, mitigating fraud, maintaining brand safety, and maximizing ad viewability and measurement; and (d) financial performance and operational efficiency. See Press Release here and Award Report here

In August, evidencing AdTheorent’s continued prioritization of its team, AdTheorent was named a Crain’s Top 100 Best Place to Work in NYC for the eighth consecutive year. Winners were chosen based on Crain’s extensive survey work of employees across all five boroughs on types of work atmospheres, leadership styles, opportunities for mentorship and professional growth, traditional benefits and atypical “work perks” that make a company a great place to work. Click here for more information

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