Adara wins 2023 VC Deal of the Year
This is the 4th time Adara receives the award, and third time in the last 5 years
We are honored to announce that Adara Ventures has received the award for ‘Best Venture Capital Deal’ at this year’s SPAINCAP Awards for our investment in Seedtag and the subsequent partial sale of its stake to Advent International in July 2022.
This is the fourth time since the awards exist, and the third time in the past five years, that Adara Ventures has received this prize at the annual Private Equity Awards event organized by SPAINCAP, Deloitte, and the IESE Business School.
The four companies that have received this distinction (Advanced Digital Design, Alienvault, Playgiga, and now Seedtag) have achieved their place in the global tech landscape, and were acquired by category leaders such as Atmel, ATT, Meta, and Advent International. With combined revenues at exit in excess of €1.3Bn, these four portfolio companies have generated gross returns to Adara above 9x invested capital, helping to consolidate Spain’s position in the global VC ecosystem.
Seedtag was founded in 2014 in Madrid, and we are privileged to have partnered with founders Albert Nieto and Jorge Poyatos from the early days. In 2016, Adara led the investor syndicate for an initial €1.5 million round when the company was a 10-person team with an annual revenue of €400k.
Since then, Seedtag has grown at a compound rate of more than 2.3x per annum and we have continued working closely with the team as they’ve become a global leader in their category. Today, Seedtag continues to scale its Contextual AI technology, with a team of more than 450 employees. In terms of international expansion, the company has gone from operating from its home country of Spain to being present in 15 countries, keeping up a rate of two new countries every year.
In Q4 2022, Advent International acquired a majority stake in Seedtag through a combination of primary and secondary investments. The €250 million round was one of the largest ever for a Spanish startup, and came just ten months after Seedtag raised €40 million in a Series B round led by Oakley Capital.
As the first institutional investor in the company, Adara has accompanied the founders for the last seven years, participating at the board level in strategic decisions. In particular, we have been involved in the funding track (three rounds of investment), the configuration of the international expansion to 14 new countries and, more recently, inorganic growth (three acquisitions in Europe). We currently still participate in the board, together with Advent and Oakley.
“We’ve always had a lot of confidence in Albert and Jorge,” commented Nicolas Goulet, Managing Partner at Adara. “With the major changes taking place in the advertising industry, coupled with advancements in AI, we were certain Seedtag’s solutions would become increasingly more relevant and valuable. The team has always known exactly what they want to achieve, and had the capacity to make it happen. Albert and Jorge exhibit a balanced mix of Vision, Execution, and Courage that we believe are necessary for young startups to achieve such outsized outcomes. This award is a great honor for Adara, and for the whole team at Seedtag.”
About Seedtag
Seedtag is a global leader in Contextual AI, the fastest-growing segment within the AdTech category. The AI-based technology developed by Seedtag combines unparalleled targeting precision with creative support to enable advertisers to know how consumers engage with content. Enhanced accuracy reveals deep insights into users’ interests that can be leveraged to deliver more relevant advertising, resulting in a better experience and more effective campaigns. This trend in the AdTech space is heavily driven by the sunset of cookies, which has accelerated in the wake of the global adoption of GDPR regulations and privacy policies.
