MNTN, a company that sells targeted TV advertising technology, may be working with Morgan Stanley on an initial public offering (IPO) as the firm considers its future.
MNTN has already expanded significantly in recent years acquiring Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds’s agency, Maximum Effort, in 2021, and raising $119M in a Series D financing in 2022. After the 2021 acquisition, Reynolds took over as chief creative officer.
Transitioning from a private to a public company allows the business to raise funds from public investors. It’s the bank’s job to set the IPO price, find out how in-demand the company is, and explore the best timing.
People familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified, told Bloomberg the news and shared that the expected timeline for the changeover is early 2025. Per the article, the sources explained that the deal’s details are being worked out and that timing, as well as the banks involved, could still change.
Fast Company reached out to MNTN and Morgan Stanely to confirm the news but did not immediately hear back.
Reynolds, who spoke last week at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival, has a unique brand vision. He recently told Fast Company that the brands have similar visions, “acknowledging and playing with something that is happening in culture, in as close to real-time as humanly possible—there is almost no better way to create a groundswell of earned media attention for your company.”
With Reynolds at the creative helm, MNTN has shifted toward faster, cheeky ads, which are sometimes pushed out in just 48 hours. He calls it “fastvertising.” But fast or slow, the marketing software platform sees itself as redefining how advertisers can reach customers, making “running TV ads as simple as search and social and [helping] brands drive measurable conversions, revenue, site visits, and more,” as it details on the site.
“MNTN Performance TV is the world’s first and only Connected TV advertising platform optimized for direct-response marketing goals.”