Ad Tech Is Acquiring: On T-Mobile-Vistar And Trade Desk-Sincera

The ad tech consolidation of 2025 is in full swing and it’s only mid-January.

on Monday T-Mobile acquired Vistar Mediaout-of-home advertising company, for $600 million. And on Wednesday, Trade Desk acquired Sinceraan ad technology metadata company that has been useful in delivery path optimization, fraud, alternate ID tracking, and more. To provide insight into these acquisitions, we present Conor McKenna of LUMA Partners.

Why is T-Mobile a telco? ridesharing ad acquisition under his belt, go further into out-of-home advertising? While Verizon and AT&T both acquired and then divested advertising businesses (AOL/yahoo, Xanderwe’re looking at you), T-Mobile leans in.

We then discuss why Sincera caught the attention of The Trade Desk. First, Metadata Society’s analysis shined a light on some dark horns ad tech since Mike O’Sullivan and Ian Meyers founded the company in 2022. A year ago raised $4.2 million in seed funding. Being snapped up by The Trade Desk, one of Sincera’s customers, after a few years of operation is a dream scenario for many founders: a quick exit to a known buyer.

But what happens next when these companies are in the hands of new owners? In the podcast, we predict that The Trade Desk will use Sincera’s technology to drive UID adoption by demonstrating the value it can create and stepping up efforts to manage inventory to its quality standards.

Stay tuned as these acquisitions are just the beginning of the story and we’re excited to watch the integration of the companies unfold after the acquisition.