John Ferber’s Bidtellect, Whose Backers Include Valhalla Partners, Acquired by Simpli.fi

John Ferber

John Ferber’s Bidtellect has agreed to be acquired by Simpli.fi, an omnichannel advertising platform based in Fort Worth, Texas, bringing to a culmination another startup journey for the storied co-founder of Advertising.com.

Among the pioneers of digital advertising, Ferber and his brother Scott battled multiple challenges — including the dotcom bust at the turn of the last century and the industry crisis post-9/11 — before selling the Baltimore-based Advertising.com to AOL in 2004 for nearly $500 million.

The Delray Beach, Fla., Bidtellect — an adtech firm co-founded by Ferber in 2011 — was snapped up for its powerful native and contextual ad capabilities, complementing Simpli.fi’s strengths in connected TV, mobile and display advertising. Bidtellect’s backers include Valhalla Partners, of Vienna, Va. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are very excited to join Simpli.fi, a recognized leader in the DSP space. This will allow us to bring new capabilities and services like advanced CTV advertising, precision programmatic targeting, and advertising automation to our clients,” said Bidtellect CEO Lon Otremba, adding that the two companies have a “clear culture fit, shared vision, and a tremendous growth opportunity.”

Simpli.fi CEO Frost Prioleau hailed Bidtellect’s strengths. “From industry-leading brand safety technology, premium supply quality, superior contextual capabilities, and proprietary bid factoring and optimization technology, Bidtellect consistently outperforms competitors, and will bring immediate value to our clients,” he said.

Computer Whiz

The son of a tax attorney, Ferber grew up in Baltimore and received a bachelors degree in psychology from Towson University. He has called himself among the “first generation of kids to grow up with a computer.” His elementary school had a computer lab for first graders and got himself a Radio Shack TRS80 too, before immersing himself in video games.

Ferber’s early call to fame was a shareware video game, called HoverRace, featuring hoverboard racing, and software he built to track and measure ads featured during the game, beginning a fascination with advertising. He sold the advertising software for $50,000. In 1998, joined hands with his brother Scott, who majored in systems engineering, in starting Teknosurf, which would later morph into the storied Advertising.com.

In the late 1990s, Advertising.com was considered the leading digital advertising firm — ahead of DoubleClick, which Google would later acquire — as the internet evolved. It signed bulk deals with publishers — just not the biggest, though — and then sold ads on a pay-per-click basis, squeezing out a profit from the arbitrage. When AOL acquired it in 2004, it claimed that Advertising.com was the largest digital ad network in the world, reaching an average 90% of the internet population 20 times a day. But before that success, the Ferbers had to brave a dotcom bust, which slashed revenues up to 80%, and then the business downturn post-9/11 terror attacks when the company had to lay off a quarter of its staff.

After the sale of Advertising.com, Ferber spent two years as AOL’s chief of product before resuming his entrepreneurial journey — living up to his father’s early prediction that he could perhaps never work for anybody. He established an incubator where startups such as video search engine USONetworks/Car-Mercial emerged. He also joined the board of his brother Scott’s new startup, Videology Group, and started Microgiving Foundation, a charitable crowdfunding platform.