Digital Ads Star Out Of Waterford
It’s not often that an Irish advertising startup makes the list of notable trade acquisitions. Welcome to the surprisingly exciting world of StitcherAds, the brainchild of Declan Kennedy (45) and his co-founder, Waterford native Conor Ryan (45).
In October 2021, their business was acquired for a reported €55m by Kargo, a New York online digital advertising specialist. It was a very satisfactory outcome for a venture that had its origins 14 years ago with Catch, which aimed to integrate 2FM’s music output with the Internet and sell the platform to other music stations around the world.
That concept didn’t gain traction, and Kennedy and Ryan pivoted to social media solutions. A decade ago, few admen thought that the business would go the way it has. Kennedy and Ryan were early adopters of apps to give advertisers a targeted data-rich leg-up in social media.
Trading as Betapond, one niche was devising Facebook content for destination marketing organisations such as Tourism Ireland and Visit Britain. The business rebranded to StitcherAds in 2014, after forging closer links with Facebook.
The duo also turned their attention to America, establishing a base in Austin, Texas, where Ryan relocated to an address on Wagon Train Road. The Betapond technology uses real-time product feeds and consumer data to generate personalised product ads within the walled gardens on social media platforms, not just on Facebook, but also Instagram, Snap, TikTok and Pinterest.
Among its offerings are retail catalogues on digital steroids. Items in the online circulars are clickable, to provide videos for further information.
The customer can even use the circular to compile his/her own shopping list.
Betapond Ltd’s abridged accounts for 2020 showed invested equity of €7.4m. The company booked a profit of €750,000, but some funders drove a hard bargain. The accounts filing disclosed a €560,000 loan note issued in 2020, repayable with a redemption premium of 50% in June 2024.
By and large, though, Betapond had patient backers in the Harcourt Venture Fund, led by Leo Hamill, and Delta Partners, with Dermot Berkery joining Hamill as a Betapond director in 2016. These funders have been richly rewarded, with Harcourt speaking for 37% of the equity and Delta Partners owning 25%. The Bank of Ireland Startup Fund and Enterprise Ireland also had a pleasing exit, with equity holdings of c.6% each.
Annual return filings suggest that Kennedy and Ryan each owned 6.5% of the equity. Peter Elger, who was in at the start of Catch and was Betapond CTO before leaving in 2013, retained a 1.8% stake, for a possibly unexpected windfall.