Beachfront Media, a mobile video programmatic ad platform, sold a majority stake to equity firm Growth Catalyst Partners and PSP Capital, a private investment firm founded by former Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.
Beachfront named former PageScience executives Bill Jennings as CEO and Rich O’Conner as CFO. Beachfront co-founder Frank Sinton will continue as president. Co-founder Lisa Connell will remain an owner.
“We view Beachfront Media as a terrific company with a strong record of growth and execution and an incredibly innovative engine in the global economy’s migration to digital,” said Pritzker, “The future of content consumption is increasingly mobile, social and arrayed across a diverse set of screens of all shapes and sizes. Beachfront’s platform-agnostic business model and world class management team will play a pivotal role in the dynamic and fast-changing media industry landscape for years to come.”
Related: Big Jump Seen in Ad Inventory on Connected TV
The investments by Growth Catalyst Partners and PSP will give Beachfront the resources to expand its capabilities and work with ad-supported video businesses across platforms.
“Beachfront has made tremendous progress over the past ten years and we are in a perfect position to bring on world class partners to expand our resources, accelerate our development plan and expand our client base,” said Sinton.
Troy Noard and Peter Berghoff will co-lead the investment for PSP and Jim TenBroek, Scott Peters and James O’Callaghan will lead it for GCP. The transaction was proprietarily sourced. Dickinson Wright LLP served as legal counsel to Growth Catalyst Partners. Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP represented PSP Capital, and Greenberg Traurig LLP acted as legal counsel to Beachfront Media.
“Beachfront is ideally positioned to benefit from the extraordinary shift of audiences to mobile and OTT platforms,” said Jennings. “Mobile video ad spending is projected to grow from $11 billion this year to over $23 billion by 2020. Beachfront is in a perfect position.”
