Ozone’s shareholders – News UK, Reach plc, Guardian News & Media and Telegraph Media Group – have announced a new wave of funding for the publisher joint venture following another year of significant growth. The additional investment from the existing shareholders will “enable the business to fast-track development of its product and service offering for advertisers and tools and analytics for publishers” according to Ozone.
Commenting on the new investment, Martin Harriman, Ozone’s Chair said, “Following an impressive twelve months, our shareholders have invested further in Ozone to accelerate the profitable growth plans of the business. Not yet five years old, the new investment reinforces the board’s view of Ozone’s critical role in creating a sustainable future for journalism and editorial content, as well as the digital advertising ecosystem at large.”
Damon Reeve, CEO, Ozone, said, “We’re delighted to have started 2023 with an even deeper commitment from our founding publishers. The investment enables us to build on the exceptional performance we’ve seen in the past 12 months, and focus on delivering better service, products and tools to our advertiser and publisher partners.”
Ozone saw advertising revenue increase by 61% in 2022 and on the advertising side of the business, the brand count increased by 48% year on year, with retained brands spending 103% more on average, per campaign. Ozone also introduced new display and video formats – such as Ozone Stories and Premium Only Video pre-roll
Strong growth was also seen on the publisher side with BuzzFeed UK, HuffPost UK, Mumsnet, Autovia and Asian Media Group joining the UK alliance, and numerous technology partnerships signed with publishers across the world. The company also launched Ozone’s Biddable Management Service to help small and medium-sized publishers, or UK arms of international publishers, increase their total programmatic revenues.
