TransUnion will continue its expansion from providing consumer financial profiles into powering advertising transactions with audience data, by fully acquiring Tru Optik.
Tru Optik is a data marketplace and management platform that includes the behavior of more than 80 million homes on connected TV, streaming audio and gaming. Deal terms were not immediately disclosed.
TransUnion already made an investment in Tru Optik in April 2019. At the time, in this video interview we are republishing today, Tru Optik CEO Andre Swanston said data security issues had been at the forefront.
“TransUnion seemed to care more about than probably anybody that we’ve talked to in the industry,” Swanston said. “A lot of the diligence process was around privacy policies and data security.”
‘Connective tissue’
At the same time, TransUnion’s Matt Spiegel said: “What Tru Optik has built is an aggregator of that kind of data stack, that data marketplace, and we think has the best one that we’ve seen in the marketplace.
“We loved their approach to the market … being this kind of connective tissue between different source of inventory, different sources of data, to make the ability to transact in this OTT world much more simple and scalable.”
In its announcement today, TransUnion says: “Combining both companies’ collective data sets, analytic capabilities and market connectivity, TransUnion and Tru Optik will be able to more precisely — and with greater scale — match individuals and households across the physical and digital worlds.”
The deal is the latest example of M&A activity converging on the two trends of streaming media and audience identity resolution. Tru Optik was represented in the deal by Terry Kawaja CEO of LUMA Partners. The deal is expected to close this month.
Future of identity
TransUnion is commonly known as a provider of consumer credit reports. It claims to have a consumer credit database on one billion people in more than 30 countries.
In the last couple of years, TransUnion has also been building out a business focused on leveraging consumer profiles as targetable criteria for advertisers.
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