Viant Technology reported record second-quarter revenue of 104.3 million dollars on August 10, 2026, a 34 percent year-over-year increase that outran the top of its own guidance. Underneath the record, operating expenses of 108.1 million dollars exceeded revenue, producing an operating loss of 3.9 million dollars and a consolidated net loss of 1.8 million dollars against net income of 1.8 million dollars a year earlier.

The Irvine, California company, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker DSP, published results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 alongside its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Two separate Current Reports on Form 8-K were filed the same day, one furnishing the earnings release and one recording a board appointment approved five days earlier.

The gap between the two income statements

Viant reported revenue of 104,254 thousand dollars for the three months ended June 30, 2026, against 77,853 thousand dollars in the comparable 2025 quarter. Gross profit rose 27 percent to 45.5 million dollars. Contribution ex-TAC, the non-GAAP measure the company treats as its primary profitability gauge, reached 60.2 million dollars, a 24 percent increase.

Below those lines, the arithmetic turns. Total operating expenses reached 108.1 million dollars, up 39 percent year over year, a growth rate five percentage points faster than revenue. Platform operations alone climbed to 58.7 million dollars from 42.0 million dollars, with traffic acquisition costs of 44.1 million dollars accounting for roughly 42 percent of revenue. General and administrative expenses rose 30 percent across the six-month period, driven partly by 3.3 million dollars in additional accounting, legal and consulting costs the company attributes to corporate, compliance and transaction matters.

Stock-based compensation reached 9,950 thousand dollars for the quarter, up 57 percent from 6,343 thousand dollars. Acquisition and restructuring costs came to 2,546 thousand dollars against 369 thousand dollars a year earlier. Adding both back, along with depreciation, amortization, interest and tax, produces adjusted EBITDA of 14.2 million dollars, a 26 percent increase, and non-GAAP net income of 9.9 million dollars.

The distance between a 1.8 million dollar loss and 9.9 million dollars of non-GAAP income is 11.7 million dollars, and roughly 85 percent of that distance is stock compensation. That is not unusual for the sector. It is worth stating plainly, because the press release headline reads "record second quarter results across all key metrics" and the GAAP loss is not among the metrics listed.

One further detail sits in the rounding. The release states adjusted EBITDA at 24 percent of contribution ex-TAC against 23 percent a year earlier, implying roughly a full point of margin expansion. The underlying figures are 23.6 percent and 23.3 percent. Chief Financial Officer Larry Madden gave the more precise number on the call, describing expansion of "approximately 30 basis points compared to the prior year."

Direct Access takes 80 percent of connected TV spend

The most consequential operational disclosure concerns supply path, not earnings. Over 80 percent of connected television advertiser spend on the platform was transacted through Direct Access during the second quarter, up from just over 50 percent in the first quarter of 2026.

A shift of that size inside three months is unusual. Direct Access connects buyers to publisher inventory without routing through a supply-side platform, and Viant attributes an average 35 percent reduction in CPMs to the path. Asked by Andrew of Raymond James what unlocked the step change, Madden pointed to customer education rather than a product release. "Just continuing to educate them on the cost savings we are seeing, on average 35% lower CPMs. It is kind of a no-brainer for them to move money there," he said.

The trajectory is set to continue. In July 2026, the company extended Direct Access to streaming services running on Publica, the connected TV ad server owned by Integral Ad Science, and expects over 90 percent of on-platform CTV spend to move through the path as those publishers onboard. Viant opened its bidder to publishers in June 2026 with a free SupplyIQ dashboard, at which point 85 percent of CTV spend was already flowing through Direct Access.

For sell-side businesses, the number describes a customer relationship being routed around. Publica sits inside the largest independent verification company; seven video ad servers were competing for connected TV share as of late 2025, and the economics of that competition change when a demand-side platform of Viant's size moves four fifths of its premium video budget onto direct integrations.

Channel mix and the composition of spend

Connected television spend rose nearly 50 percent year over year and accounted for over 50 percent of total platform spend, a record on both measures. That compares with 46 percent of advertiser spend in the third quarter of 2025, which was itself an all-time high at the time.

Video inclusive of CTV represented over 65 percent of total platform spend. Emerging channels taken together, meaning connected television, streaming audio and digital out-of-home, accounted for over 60 percent of advertiser spend, up from 54 percent for full-year 2025. The company's top five verticals, roughly 60 percent of platform spend, grew almost 30 percent year over year, with healthcare, public services and travel leading.

Political advertising contributed about 200 basis points, according to Co-Founder and Chief Executive Tim Vanderhook, who described the company as having never been a large political player and confirmed it maintains no dedicated political sales team.

Attention data enters the bid, at a cost to margin

Viant closed its acquisition of TVision Insights on May 1, 2026. The company announced the deal on April 15, 2026 at 40 million dollars, structured as 22.5 million dollars in cash and 17.5 million dollars in Class A stock, and closed it in early May.

The purchase accounting in the Form 10-Q tells a slightly different story than the announcement. Estimated purchase consideration is approximately 37.5 million dollars, consisting of 16.2 million dollars in cash, 18.9 million dollars of Class A common stock, and an amount expected to be payable under a contractual holdback. Some 4.2 million dollars of consideration is held back for post-closing working capital adjustments and possible indemnification claims, and the company has estimated working capital adjustments of approximately 1.8 million dollars that reduce the total. The allocation places 12.3 million dollars against identifiable intangibles and 13.4 million dollars against goodwill, with a 14.7 million dollar deferred tax asset. The intangible split runs 7.0 million dollars of developed technology over six years, 3.0 million dollars of trademarks over five, 1.2 million dollars of customer relationships over seven, and 1.1 million dollars of panelist relationships over four.

The measurement business is dilutive for now. TVision produced roughly a 150 basis point drag on adjusted EBITDA margins in the second quarter, and the third-quarter guide assumes about 200 basis points. Madden gave both figures in response to Naved Khan of B. Riley. Revenue contribution, by contrast, is minimal: the filing states that TVision's results of operations were not material to consolidated results, and Vanderhook described the unit as "pretty de minimis from a revenue perspective."

What the acquisition buys is a signal rather than a revenue line. Attention data can now be applied pre-bid, which the company frames as a price discovery mechanism: an impression's intrinsic value is calculated from its attention score and compared against prevailing market price. Vanderhook illustrated the concept with a hypothetical, citing a peak-attention moment during game five of the NBA Finals valued at a 120 dollar CPM by TVision, on which Viant would be willing to bid up to that level while competitors lacking the data would not.

Early commercial results are described as 42 pilot campaigns targeting high-attention inventory segments, of which over 80 percent achieved higher conversion rates than benchmark, at an average lift of 1.4 times. The company cited outliers of 14 times for a home improvement brand, 3.7 times for an online university and 3.1 times for a state tourism office. Chief Operating Officer Chris Vanderhook framed the underlying shift in units of account: TVision helps advertisers "move beyond paying for impressions that are merely delivered" and toward valuing media on "cost per attentive second."

The attention category has been consolidating around exactly this argument. Pause ad benchmarks published in June 2026 used TVision data while noting that the panel now sits inside a demand-side platform, an ownership change with implications for third-party studies that rely on it.

The litigation Viant inherited

The Form 10-Q discloses that Viant assumed pending litigation with The Nielsen Company (US), LLC as part of the TVision transaction. Nielsen has filed multiple patent infringement actions against TVision since 2021. In June 2026, a jury returned a unanimous verdict of non-infringement in the 2022 action, Case No. 1:22-cv-00057 in the District of Delaware, concerning automatic content recognition technology. One case remains active, a 2025 action under Case No. 1:25-cv-00575.

In November 2025, TVision filed antitrust counterclaims in that action, alleging that Nielsen used serial patent litigation, exclusionary contract terms and monopoly power in television audience measurement to suppress competition in violation of the Sherman Act. Viant states that Nielsen may appeal the June verdict and that it cannot assure a favorable outcome on the counterclaims. Certain litigation costs are subject to indemnification and cost-sharing under the merger agreement with TVision's former equityholders, subject to limitations.

That claim lands in a period when Nielsen's competitive conduct is already before appellate courts. The Second Circuit upheld an injunction against Nielsen's radio ratings pricing policy on July 13, 2026, holding for the first time in that circuit that pricing designed to achieve the effect of a tie can violate antitrust law. Nielsen had earlier won a stay of the underlying district court order before losing on the merits of the appeal.

Autonomous buying reaches 5 percent of spend

Outcomes, the fully autonomous product built on the AI Lattice Brain decisioning layer, accounted for 5 percent of total ad spend year to date roughly six months after launch. All of that spend came from existing customers diverting performance budget, according to Chris Vanderhook, rather than from new accounts.

The competitive framing is explicit. Viant positions Outcomes against Google's Performance Max and Meta's Advantage+, with the distinction that execution runs across the open internet rather than owned inventory. The addressable pool cited on the call is the roughly 300 billion dollars of United States search and social spend, and the 10 million advertisers management describes as confining performance budgets to those environments.

The intelligence layer sits underneath. Household ID appears in 80 percent of programmatic bid requests and 96 percent of CTV requests, mapped to 95 percent of United States household addresses. IRIS Content ID, acquired with IRIS.TV in November 2024, reached nearly 50 percent penetration of the bid stream, with launches scheduled across Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Roku, DirecTV, Sling TV, Spectrum and Philo through the third and fourth quarters to reach approximately 70 percent of biddable inventory by year end. That contextual layer has been extending through partners; Xumo added IRIS.TV signals to linear streaming in June 2026 alongside Gracenote.

Not every figure in the source material reconciles. Describing a beauty brand whose social spend concentrated on in-market shoppers, Chris Vanderhook said the advertiser was "only reaching 8% of his target audience," then in the following sentence referred to advertising to "the 5% of consumers currently shopping for your product." The two percentages are presented as the same constraint and are not reconciled on the call.

Competitive position and the Trade Desk comparison

Barton Crockett of Rosenblatt put the sector's central question directly, contrasting Viant's growth against The Trade Desk, which reported 3 percent second-quarter growth and guided to a 12 percent third-quarter decline, sending its shares down 24 percent. Tim Vanderhook attributed the divergence to data assets, saying Viant has "a fantastic proprietary data set that kind of horizontally applies to a lot of marketers in CTV," and arguing that a competitor's reliance on third-party data leaves it undifferentiated.

Chris Vanderhook said friction between agency holding companies and what he called the company's primary competitor has already triggered budget reallocations and new requests for proposal. That description tracks a dispute in which Publicis advised clients in March 2026 to pause transactions on The Trade Desk following an audit, one strand of a period that also produced four chief financial officers in fourteen months at the rival.

Executives also argued that walled garden demand-side platforms operated by Amazon and Google carry conflicting incentives because they sell their own inventory, and said such providers are being sidelined early in current RFP processes. Viant's own risk factors name Yahoo DSP, The Trade Desk, Google and Amazon as competitors, and note that entry into audience measurement now exposes it to established measurement providers with greater resources.

Management sized the migration opportunity at approximately 37 billion dollars of industry connected television spend against 51 billion dollars still in linear television. Viant expects contribution ex-TAC to outgrow a United States programmatic market projected to expand roughly 13 percent.

Guidance, cash and the cost base

For the third quarter of 2026, Viant guided revenue of 107.5 million to 110.5 million dollars, contribution ex-TAC of 65.0 million to 67.0 million dollars, non-GAAP operating expenses of 46.5 million to 47.5 million dollars, and adjusted EBITDA of 18.5 million to 19.5 million dollars. At the midpoint that implies about 27 percent revenue growth, 25 percent contribution ex-TAC growth, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 29 percent against contribution ex-TAC. Madden said the midpoint "assumes record Q3 performance across revenue, contribution ex-TAC, and adjusted EBITDA."

Longer term, management restated a goal of 20 percent or better annual top-line growth with adjusted EBITDA margins reaching 40 percent or higher over several years.

The balance sheet carries 193.1 million dollars in cash and equivalents, working capital of 200.6 million dollars, no debt and an undrawn 75 million dollar credit facility. Accounts receivable fell to 145.1 million dollars from 177.1 million dollars at December 31, 2025, which supplied most of the 31.3 million dollars in operating cash flow for the six months.

A timing quirk sits in the cash flow commentary. Madden reported quarterly operating cash flow of 28.5 million dollars and quarterly free cash flow of 22.4 million dollars, against six-month free cash flow of 21.4 million dollars. Second-quarter free cash flow therefore exceeded the half-year figure, which implies a negative first quarter on that measure. The company did not address the sequencing.

Share repurchases have slowed sharply. Viant used 1.0 million dollars under its buyback programme in the first half of 2026, against 28.1 million dollars in the same period of 2025, with 39.4 million dollars remaining under the authorisation as of August 7. Cumulative returns since the programme began in May 2024 stand at 60.6 million dollars.

Efficiency continues to improve on the company's preferred internal measure: trailing twelve-month contribution ex-TAC per employee rose more than 7 percent year over year, a twelfth consecutive quarterly increase.

Board appointment

A separate Form 8-K records that the board elected Craig Abrahams as a Class I director on August 5, 2026, effective August 10, and appointed him to the audit committee. Abrahams co-founded Caesars Interactive Entertainment and later served as president and chief financial officer of Playtika. The grant date fair value of his initial restricted stock unit award is 400,000 dollars, plus a prorated portion of a 185,000 dollar additional grant.

A note on the reported earnings surprise

Coverage of the quarter circulated a consensus revenue estimate of 59.72 million dollars, producing a stated beat of 74.56 percent. That figure sits below the 77.9 million dollars Viant reported in the same quarter of 2025 and well below its own guidance range, and does not reconcile with any published company forecast. The earnings per share comparison in the same material, adjusted 0.12 dollars against an estimated 0.03 dollars, is described as a 300 percent surprise. Both figures come from the transcript provider rather than from Viant, and neither represents the company's own characterisation.

Why this matters for advertisers and publishers

Three practical consequences follow from the disclosures.

The first is supply path. When four fifths of a growing DSP's connected television budget bypasses supply-side platforms and heads toward 90 percent, the intermediary layer between buyer and streaming publisher thins. Buyers who have modelled CPM savings against SSP fees now have a public data point at 35 percent. Publishers weighing direct integrations against ad server relationships have a corresponding one.

The second is the unit of trade. Attention applied as a pre-bid signal changes what a buyer is purchasing from a delivered impression to a probability of engagement, priced accordingly. If cost per attentive second gains traction as a planning currency, media plans, benchmarks and post-campaign reporting all shift with it. Viant's acquisition of TVision placed an independent panel inside a buying platform, and the antitrust counterclaims against Nielsen suggest the measurement layer's ownership structure will be contested in court as well as in the market.

The third is divergence. Two independent demand-side platforms reported within four days of each other and moved in opposite directions, one growing 34 percent, the other guiding to a 12 percent decline. The first week of August produced a clean sort across listed ad tech, and the sorting principle appears to be whether a platform owns data its competitors cannot buy. That is a question every buyer negotiating a 2027 platform commitment has to answer for itself.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Viant Technology Inc. of Irvine, California, trading on Nasdaq as DSP. Co-Founder and Chief Executive Tim Vanderhook, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Chris Vanderhook, and Chief Financial Officer Larry Madden presented the results, with Senior Vice President of Investor Relations Nicholas Zangler hosting. Analysts asking questions were Andrew of Raymond James, Tom White of D.A. Davidson, Jason of Craig-Hallum, Barton Crockett of Rosenblatt, Naved Khan of B. Riley and Brianna Diaz of JMP Securities. Craig Abrahams joined the board as an independent director.

What: Second-quarter revenue of 104,254 thousand dollars, up 34 percent, with contribution ex-TAC of 60.2 million dollars, adjusted EBITDA of 14.2 million dollars and a consolidated net loss of 1,836 thousand dollars against net income of 1,787 thousand dollars a year earlier. Connected television spend rose nearly 50 percent and exceeded half of platform spend. Over 80 percent of that CTV spend transacted through Direct Access, up from just over 50 percent in the first quarter. TVision, acquired for estimated consideration of approximately 37.5 million dollars, produced a 150 basis point drag on adjusted EBITDA margin.

When: Results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 were reported on Monday, August 10, 2026, with the Form 10-Q filed the same day and the earnings call held at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

Where: Irvine, California, with the results covering United States platform activity and litigation pending in the District of Delaware.

Why: The quarter documents a supply path shift away from intermediaries, an attempt to reprice connected television inventory on attention rather than delivery, and a widening performance gap between independent demand-side platforms in the same reporting week.