All Access

Media Deals

Media Deals Alerts

Alert

Standard

Media Deals Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

mustard

BFD Expert Voices - Media Deals

BFD Expert Voices

Adgile Media Group, a New York-based out-of-home advertising company that sells trackable ads on trucks, raised $5 million.

Why it matters: Adgile saw opportunity in modernizing a traditional business — ads on trucks — as interest in OOH grows with digital and social ads getting pricier.  

Details: The round was led by Brand Foundry Ventures, the early-stage venture capital firm, and general partner Brian Spaly has joined the board.

Other participants were Amity Supply, Finn Capital Partners, Consumer Ventures, marketing consultant Nik Sharma, entrepreneur Hannah Bronfman, Everlane founder Michael Preysman, Niche Capital, KBP Brands co-founder Barry Dubin and Rothy's executive Chris Hull. 

💭 Kerry's thought bubble: Brand Foundry is known for its investments in consumer brands like Allbirds, so an investment in advertising is particularly intriguing. 

Catch up quick: COO Tom Shea and President Max Flannery co-founded Adgile in 2018 at the University of Chicago's New Venture Challenge.

Flannery says he was inspired after seeing a small screen on the back of the truck advertising Applebee's. "I looked up where the closest Applebee's was, and it was an hour and a half away," he tells Kerry. "That doesn't seem like effective advertising."

They started buying weatherproof digital screens that could track the time and location and putting them on trucks. Prior to this round, they raised about $400,000 from friends and family.

Adgile works with about 100,000 trucks. Its ad clients include many direct-to-consumer brands such as Topicals Skincare, non-alcoholic apéritif Ghia and Asian food company Fly by Jing. It recently started working with T-Mobile and Planet Fitness.

What's next: Adgile plans to grow from 13 employees to more than 20 by end of year, hiring in sales, operations, account management and data science. 

The bottom line: "Not only are we seeing that our service is sticky with our advertising clients, but it's the same thing we're seeing with the trucking industry," Flannery says. "If we're offering a monthly subsidy to advertise on the side of their assets, for a lot of these companies, it's a lifeline."

1 big thing: OOH on trucks 

Illustration of a delivery truck with a 100 dollar bill on the side

Illustration: Allie Carl, Sarah Grillo/Axios

Major League Cricket raised $44 million in series A and A1 funding and secured an additional commitment of $76 million over the next year, the league announced yesterday. 

Why it matters: Media rights deals to live sports are pricey, and cricket is no exception. Disney's Star India paid $2.55 billion for a five-year TV and digital rights deal of Indian Premier League games. A new deal could surpass $6 billion, per Front Office Sports.

Details: The round was led by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella along with other big names in tech and business. 

Additional backers included Madrona Venture Group managing director Soma Somasegar along with Milliways Ventures and Rocketship VC founding partners Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan.

The league said the $120 million will be put toward launching the first-ever professional Twenty20 cricket league in the U.S. That includes building cricket stadiums and training centers.

What they're saying: "The ceiling for cricket's growth in the United States is incredibly high, with the passion for the game at the grassroots level I've observed in Texas [as] proof of its potential. ... The plans MLC have laid out to develop infrastructure and build a foundation for professional cricket to thrive nationwide puts the sport on a tremendous trajectory," MLC investor Anurag Jain said. 

2. The BFD: Cricket to expand in U.S.

Illustration of a cricket playing hitting a ball through a television screen

Data: Hub Entertainment research, 2022 Best Bundle Study; Chart: Axios Visuals

The average number of sources a consumer uses to watch TV has hit another all-time high, per a recent study by Hub Entertainment research. 

People use more than seven sources, up from more than five last year. The survey was conducted in April among 1,600 U.S. consumers with broadband, age 16-74, who watch at least one hour of TV per week.

Per Hub, it counts "traditional pay TV service, live TV streaming services, individual streaming subscriptions, free streaming services, transactional services, and antenna."

3. Charted: Sources of TV content

Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav positions merged company as fifth broadcast network, skips any talk of streaming (Deadline)

"Zaslav didn't mention anything about streaming services HBO Max or Discovery+, even though both have been taking advertising since last year. Instead, he focused on the legacy of Warner Bros and the potential of the combination with Discovery, singling out CNN and affirming he wouldn't let it drift into rival cable news outlets' fractious and partisan approaches," Dade Hayes writes. 

Paramount clocks in with '60 Minutes' for first cross-company Upfront presentation (Variety)

"Jo Ann Ross, longtime CBS ad sales chief, still opened the show without pomp and circumstance, introducing an event that was designed to run an hour playing off the them[e] of CBS' signature newsmagazine '60 Minutes.' In reality, it ran about an hour and 20 minutes," Michael Schneider writes. 

Netflix cancellations rise among long-standing subscribers (The Information)

"New data show that people who have been subscribers to Netflix for more than three years accounted for a significantly greater share of cancellations in the first quarter than they did two years earlier," Jessica Toonkel reports. 

4. Channel surfing

Illustration of a TV color test screen in the shape of a wave.

🗣️ Quote of the day: "We've been very happily on the sidelines watching this sort of bloodbath, which is going on in the SVOD market," Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said at the MoffettNathanson's Media and Communications summit yesterday. 

@tim_bays: Rooftop overlooking Petco Park to kick off the wedding weekend. 

@kerrymflynn: Too busy meeting all of my colleagues IRL to watch any content tonight!

Thank you for reading Axios Pro Media Deals! Please ask your friends, colleagues and truck drivers to sign up.

May 19, 2022

1 big thing: OOH on trucks