Index Exchange today acquired machine learning (ML) specialist Rivr Technologies GmbH in its first business acquisition.
The move enables Index to leverage the German company’s ML-based traffic optimisation technology, in order to deal with the growing scale of requests sent to demand-side platforms (DSP). Index recently rebuilt its exchange, which processes over 270 billion slot requests per day and over three million slot requests per second.
Index and Rivr will integrate their teams and platforms under the leadership of Eran Udassin, VP of ML and optimisation engineering at Index, who will in turn report to Index CTO Ray Ghanbari. Index added that Rivr CEO and co-founder Jeff van Ede will join the company for an interim period “to ensure a seamless transition.” Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Looking down the Rivr
Index’s first acquisition marks a major play by the independent ad exchange, integrating Rivr’s ML capabilities at a time when the programmatic industry is looking to technology to plug the gap vacated by third-party cookies.
“With the addition of Rivr, we are uniquely positioned to deliver advanced ML-enabled optimisation to the industry to increase efficiency and drive even better results for our customers,” said Ghanbari. “Our teams share the same vision and deep passion to build solutions that leverage machine learning to unlock more insights for media owners and buyers, enabling more efficient campaigns. This collaboration is a further testament to our dedication to innovation and commitment to shaping the future of ad tech.”
“Index is a true engineering-first company that is at the forefront of tackling industry challenges at scale,” added Udassin. “We are thrilled to be a part of a company that strategically aligns with our technical passions, and are looking forward to pushing the programmatic borders from within.”
