4C has completed the acquisition of Civolution’s TV analytics and synced ads business, Teletrax. 4C hopes to deliver value for its clients through social and TV advertising and cross-screen marketing campaigns. The full Teletrax team of approximately 70 employees, located across Eindhoven, the Netherlands, London, New York and Los Angeles merges with similarly sized 4C.
Following the transaction, Sake Bosch, managing partner of Civolution’s investor Prime Ventures has joined 4C’s board of directors. Civolution CEO Alex Terpstra (pictured), remains on the Civolution board and also joins 4C where he assumes the position of managing director, EMEA. Additionally, Harrie Tholen, SVP sales and marketing at Civolution’s NexGuard business, now becomes MD of NexGuard, taking over the day-to-day management.
Since the formation of Civolution as a spinout of Royal Philips Electronics in 2008 it created a portfolio of watermarking and fingerprinting solutions. This transaction is the second exit of a Civolution business unit, following the December 2014 sale of its Audio Watermarking business to Kantar Media.
Civolution now intends to focus entirely on content protection through its NexGuard forensic watermarking business, which provides technologies and solutions that help media companies fight content piracy in (post)production, digital cinema, pay-TV, VoD and OTT streaming.
“This exit of the Teletrax business unit marks a fantastic opportunity for 4C and Teletrax, who share a vision for the future of advertising and offer best-in-class software solutions. Teletrax clients will enjoy 4C’s unique ability to unlock the power of social connections in driving advertising effectiveness, while 4C’s clients gain access to our patented real-time TV analytics and TV synced advertising offerings,” said Terpstra. “This milestone furthermore enables Civolution to be even more laser-focused on its industry leading NexGuard forensic watermarking solutions against the illegal re-distribution of content, the greatest piracy threat facing the content industry today.”
Tholen added: “NexGuard forensic watermarking represents a powerful and decisive deterrent to pirates where traditional content protection schemes can no longer provide protection. With so much at stake, it is critical for content owners and service providers to react promptly to the illegal use of their content.”
