According to eMarketer, the US programmatic digital display ad spending was estimated to grow from $32.56 billion in 2017  to grow to $45.72 billion by 2019. The growth will be driven by continued emphasis on advertising quality and brand safety. Billion Dollar Unicorn player AppNexus is hoping to cash in on this growth, if it can address the competition from the bigger players.

AppNexus’s Financials

New York-based AppNexus was founded in 2007 by ad-tech veterans Brian O’Kelley and Mike Nolet to create an advertising exchange platform for trading solutions and marketplaces for Internet advertising. Besides selling ads, AppNexus’s platform also provides analytical capabilities on a real-time basis.

AppNexus earns revenues through an 8.5% fee that it charges to connect buyers and sellers on its digital advertising platform. It does not publish detailed financials. Analysts estimate that the company is operating at gross revenues of $2 billion, translating to net revenues of ~$170 million. AppNexus is expected to be operating profitably since 2014.

It is venture funded so far with $321.5 million in funding from investors including WPP, Technology Crossover Ventures, Venrock, Tribeca Venture Partners, Microsoft, First Round, Kodiak Venture Partners, Coriolis Ventures, Ron Conway, Ben Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Marc Andreessen. Its last round of funding was held in September 2016, when it raised $31 million at an undisclosed valuation. Earlier funding rounds had valued the company at $1.2 billion. At the end of 2016, AppNexus had confidentially filed to go public at an estimated valuation of up to $2 billion. Analysts were expecting it to list in the second quarter of 2017. But there has been no further movement since the filing on its listing proceedings.

AppNexus and the Big Players

AppNexus may have maintained silence about its listing plans, but it is vociferous about the current duopoly in the digital advertising world. It is no secret that the online ad market is dominated by Facebook and Alphabet. AppNexus has been pushing itself along with other smaller players as the third option available to customers.