Magnite acquires streamr.ai to simplify CTV advertising for small businesses

Magnite introduced the acquisition of streamr.ai on September 9, 2025, marking the biggest unbiased sell-side promoting firm’s newest transfer to democratize Linked Tv promoting for small and medium-sized companies. The monetary phrases of the transaction weren’t disclosed.

The acquisition brings synthetic intelligence-powered instruments that streamline CTV inventive era and marketing campaign setup, addressing what CEO Michael Barrett described as complexity and value limitations which have traditionally bottlenecked small enterprise entry to tv promoting alternatives.

In line with Barrett, “The CTV promoting alternative for small companies is gigantic, but it surely’s been bottlenecked by complexity and excessive prices.” The streamr.ai platform makes use of AI to speed up the transition for SMBs by simplifying CTV inventive era and marketing campaign setup processes that beforehand required substantial technical experience and finances allocation.

Magnite will supply streamr.ai’s expertise to ecosystem companions working with SMB shoppers, together with businesses, retail media networks, publishers working purchaser marketplaces, and demand-side platforms. This distribution technique leverages Magnite’s dominant market place in CTV provide, the place the corporate maintains 99% market coverage according to independent analysis launched earlier this yr.

streamr.ai focuses on constructing cutting-edge generative AI expertise for broadcasters, promoting expertise platforms, and businesses in search of to seize bigger shares of CTV promoting spending. The platform allows customers to generate video commercials and launch them on CTV platforms in beneath two minutes, representing a major discount within the conventional inventive improvement timeline.

The acquisition brings Jonathan Moffe, former product lead at Wurl (acquired by AppLovin), OrkaTV, Yahoo, and Shutterstock, who serves as streamr.ai’s CEO and co-founder. Chief Know-how Officer Frank Turano, previously an engineer at Shutterstock and Dotdash Meredith, additionally joins Magnite by way of the transaction.

Moffe emphasised the strategic alignment between the businesses, stating, “Magnite is the proper dwelling for our expertise and expertise. Magnite shares our imaginative and prescient for serving to small companies develop income by way of CTV promoting, and their relationships and sources will allow us to speed up that course of.”

The timing aligns with important trade transformation in video promoting manufacturing strategies. Current analysis from the Interactive Promoting Bureau signifies that 86% of buyers currently use or plan to implement generative AI for video advertisement creation, with expectations that AI-generated content material will comprise 40% of all commercials by 2026.

Small and medium-sized companies have traditionally confronted substantial limitations coming into CTV promoting markets on account of minimal spending necessities, advanced marketing campaign setup processes, and inventive manufacturing prices. Conventional CTV promoting required relationships with a number of expertise distributors, substantial upfront inventive investments, and complex marketing campaign administration experience sometimes obtainable solely to bigger advertising and marketing organizations.

The streamr.ai acquisition addresses these challenges by way of automated inventive era capabilities that remove conventional manufacturing bottlenecks. The platform’s two-minute marketing campaign creation timeline contrasts sharply with standard tv promoting workflows that usually require weeks or months from idea to marketing campaign launch.

Business knowledge demonstrates the rising significance of CTV promoting accessibility. Connected TV’s share of media budgets is projected to double from 14% in 2023 to 28% in 2025, whereas 72% of entrepreneurs plan to extend programmatic promoting funding in response to current trade surveys.

Magnite’s ecosystem method allows broad distribution of streamr.ai’s capabilities with out requiring particular person SMB adoption of recent expertise platforms. Companies and retail media networks can combine the AI-powered inventive instruments into current consumer workflows, decreasing adoption friction for smaller advertisers in search of CTV capabilities.

The acquisition helps Magnite’s broader technique of increasing synthetic intelligence capabilities throughout all firm merchandise. Barrett famous through the announcement that the corporate will “proceed to develop our AI experience and capabilities throughout all Magnite merchandise” past the speedy streamr.ai integration.

Magnite’s dominance in CTV provide supplies strategic benefits for streamr.ai expertise deployment. The corporate maintains direct relationships with main streaming platforms together with Netflix, Disney, Roku, and Warner Bros. Discovery, whereas securing most well-liked integrations with over 90% of its CTV provide companions.

Current monetary efficiency demonstrates Magnite’s CTV progress trajectory. The corporate reported CTV contribution excluding traffic acquisition costs growing 15% year-over-year in Q1 2025, with CTV income reaching $63.2 million and outperforming firm steering ranges.

The small enterprise promoting alternative represents substantial untapped income potential for CTV publishers. Conventional linear tv promoting required important minimal spending commitments that excluded smaller companies from tv advertising and marketing methods. Linked TV’s programmatic infrastructure allows extra granular finances allocation and exact viewers concentrating on appropriate for SMB advertising and marketing targets.

Technical capabilities inside streamr.ai’s platform handle a number of ache factors in CTV promoting execution. Automated inventive era reduces dependency on exterior manufacturing sources, whereas streamlined marketing campaign setup processes remove conventional technical complexity limitations that prevented SMB participation in tv promoting markets.

The acquisition announcement follows broader trade recognition of synthetic intelligence’s transformational affect on video promoting manufacturing. Recent studies indicate that AI-powered creative automation enables small and mid-tier brands to produce professional-quality content efficiently with out requiring in depth manufacturing groups or substantial finances allocations.

Magnite’s positioning as an unbiased promoting expertise firm supplies aggressive benefits in serving numerous ecosystem companions. In contrast to bigger expertise conglomerates that compete immediately with businesses and publishers, Magnite’s unbiased standing allows collaborative relationships throughout the promoting expertise panorama.

The streamr.ai workforce’s earlier expertise consists of important tenure at main expertise and media firms. Moffe’s background spans product management roles at Wurl, which AppLovin acquired for $430 million in 2022, together with strategic positions at Yahoo and Shutterstock. Turano brings engineering experience from Shutterstock and Dotdash Meredith, offering technical depth in media expertise implementation.

Linked tv promoting continues experiencing speedy enlargement globally. Business projections point out CTV promoting spending will attain $33.35 billion in 2025, with substantial progress pushed by viewers migration from conventional linear tv to streaming platforms throughout demographic segments.

The combination timeline and particular product rollout schedule weren’t disclosed within the September 9 announcement. Nevertheless, Magnite’s dedication to providing streamr.ai expertise to ecosystem companions suggests near-term availability for businesses and retail media networks serving SMB shoppers.

For advertising and marketing professionals, the acquisition alerts continued trade motion towards accessible CTV promoting options. The mixture of Magnite’s provide protection with streamr.ai’s inventive automation capabilities addresses persistent limitations which have restricted small enterprise participation in tv promoting markets.

Business observers anticipate extra acquisitions and partnerships centered on democratizing superior promoting applied sciences for smaller companies. The success of AI-powered inventive automation platforms demonstrates important market demand for options that scale back complexity and value limitations in digital promoting execution.

Timeline

• September 9, 2025: Magnite announces acquisition of streamr.ai to unlock small enterprise promoting spend for CTV publishers
• August 26, 2025: Magnite announces expansion of advertising solutions with Pause Ads throughout DIRECTV, DISH Media, and Fubo
• August 21, 2025: Magnite becomes first sell-side partner for Acxiom data activation enabling first-party knowledge integration
• July 23, 2025: Dentsu expands Magnite partnership for CTV advertising deploying SpringServe platform throughout EMEA markets
• July 16, 2025: IAB report reveals 86% of buyers using AI for video ads, with CTV stock turning into 47% biddable
• June 5, 2025: Magnite partners with Anoki to enable scene-level targeting in CTV turning into first SSP to supply multimodal AI evaluation
• Could 7, 2025: Magnite reports Q1 2025 results with 15% CTV growth and total contribution ex-TAC growing 12%
• March 5, 2025: Independent analysis shows Magnite dominates CTV market with 99% provide protection

Abstract

Who: Magnite (NASDAQ: MGNI), the biggest unbiased sell-side promoting firm, acquired streamr.ai, an AI-powered CTV promoting platform based by CEO Jonathan Moffe and CTO Frank Turano.

What: The acquisition brings synthetic intelligence instruments that streamline Linked TV inventive era and marketing campaign setup, making CTV promoting accessible to small and medium-sized companies by way of Magnite’s ecosystem companions together with businesses, retail media networks, and DSPs.

When: The acquisition was introduced on September 9, 2025, with monetary phrases undisclosed and integration timeline to be decided.

The place: The transaction impacts Magnite’s world operations spanning North America, EMEA, LATAM, and APAC markets, whereas particularly concentrating on SMB shoppers by way of associate relationships.

Why: The acquisition addresses complexity and value limitations which have prevented small companies from accessing CTV promoting alternatives, leveraging rising trade adoption of AI-powered inventive automation and the projected doubling of CTV’s media finances share from 14% to twenty-eight% by 2025.