NEWS

Verizon isn’t the only carrier that wants to ramp up in ad tech to complement (and offset) its legacy business. Today, Norway-based Telenor announced that it has acquired Tapad, a New York-based cross-device retargeting startup co-founded by two Norwegians, Are Traasdahl and Dag Liodden, for $360 million “on a debt and cash-free basis.”

The price covers 95% of the company. Traasdahl and Liodden are together keeping the remaining 5%. The deal is expected to close Q1 2016, subject to regulatory conditions. It’s a non-cash deal, but on paper it represents a big premium on the amount the startup raised: just under $34 million in four rounds of funding. It’s not clear what previous valuation Tapad had before its exit.

Tapad was backed by Spring Capital (which owned 46.5% of the company), FirstMark Capital, Firsthand Technology, Avalon Ventures, WPP and Metamorphic Ventures. Traasdahl, notably, is the president of Spring Capital, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Tapad was founded in 2010 and focuses on cross-device marketing technology: it tracks what it says are billions of data points across multiple screens — think mobile, PC, TV, and more as they come to market like watches, cars and so on — to gain a better sense of where consumers are going and what they are doing online.