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Ad tech firm MediaMath has acquired Rare Crowds, a provider of targeted media solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. Also, MediaMath has named Eric Picard, CEO and co-founder of Rare Crowds, as vice president of strategic partnerships. MediaMath’s backers include Spring Lake Equity Partners, Akamai Technologies, Safeguard Scientifics, Catalyst Investors and Observatory Capital.

PRESS RELEASE

New York, NY — November 10, 2014 — MediaMath, developers of the TerminalOne Marketing Operating SystemTM, today announces the acquisition of Rare Crowds, a technology company building innovative solutions to find marketer-defined target audiences across display, mobile, video and social.

Rare Crowds’ open source technology, OpenAdStack, uses combinatorial optimization techniques and machine learning algorithms to find extremely targeted media that is as close as possible to a perfect match against a marketer’s campaign goals and desired audiences. Integrated into TerminalOne, Rare Crowds’ technology will enable marketers to reach their target audiences with greater accuracy and efficiency.

As part of the acquisition, Rare Crowds’ CEO and co-founder Eric Picard, respected pioneer and ad tech industry thought leader, joins the MediaMath team as Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, including MediaMath’s unique and exclusive Akamai relationship. Picard brings nearly 20 years of experience as a product and strategy leader within the digital advertising arena, having held C-level and senior management roles at TRAFFIQ, Microsoft, and BlueStreak.

“I have been following MediaMath’s success since the company’s earliest days,” said Picard. “I couldn’t be more excited to join a market-leading company on the edge of innovation, whose commitment to delivering marketer outcomes is one I share. I look forward to helping drive the company’s growth as we look to bring the benefits of programmatic marketing into new parts of the ecosystem.”

“We’re especially excited to have Eric leading our efforts to extend programmatic to address the full media plan. We think there’s a huge opportunity for new technology to transforms media planning and buying. The combination of Eric’s experience and leadership with Rare Crowds technology bring us two steps closer to delivering game-changing new capabilities for our clients,” said Mike Lamb, Chief Commercial Officer of MediaMath. “We are thrilled to have Eric on board.”

Rare Crowds was supported by an impressive list of angel investors that reads like a “who’s who” of respected industry leaders, among them Peter Naylor, SVP Sales at Hulu and former Chairman, IAB; Rich LeFurgy Founder, IAB; Dave Smith, Founder and CEO, Mediasmith; Tom Hespos, Founder and CMO, Underscore Marketing; Nick Pahade, CEO of PopTent, and many others.