Smartly.io sells a majority stake to Providence Equity Partners

The Finnish social ads company Smartly.io is selling a majority stake to Providence Equity Partners. The announcement comes today from Providence Equity Partners, which is investing €200 million from funds.

Providence says that will partner with Smartly.io’s management to help accelerate the growth through acquisition and organic investment.

Smartly.io was founded in 2013 and has over 350 employees, and 16 offices around the world. Smartly.io is an official Facebook Marketing Partner since 2014.

Smartly.io has a self-serve platform or managed services, and works with automation of marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Last year, Smartly.io launched a creative studio service, was fully integrated with Pinterest, as creative and advertising marketing partner, and Google Marketing Platform partnered with Smartly.io to integrate social numbers into Google’s adserver, today called Campaign Manager.

Smartly.io CEO and Founder Kristo Ovaska said that by “partnering with Providence, Smartly.io gains invaluable strategic advisory, deep operational experience and market insight, especially in the U.S. where major Fortune 500 companies are only starting to automate their creative processes.”

“We envision Smartly.io as the number one digital advertising platform for all marketers, and one that allows teams to leverage enhanced creative capabilities to supercharge and optimize their campaigns. With over €2.5 billion in ad spend flowing through Smartly.io in 2019, the largest global brands are already managing their paid social and online video spend with the platform, and this new partner allows us to continue innovating to better serve our customers as their social media advertising needs evolve,” he added.