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The complex landscape of digital advertising revenue optimization is facing a significant technological intervention with the emergence of Swivel, a public technology SaaS startup poised to revolutionize how publishers manage their ad campaigns. Founded by a team of seasoned ad tech veterans with deep experience in ad server development, Swivel aims to alleviate the manual burdens faced by publisher ad operations (Ad Ops) teams by offering an AI-driven yield optimization tool. This strategic move addresses a critical pain point for publishers striving to maximize their advertising revenue in an increasingly fragmented digital ecosystem.
The company, formerly known as PilotDesk before its rebranding to Swivel in May, is the brainchild of Joseph Hirsch, Matt Dearborn, and Rich Lin, the co-founders of SpringServe, a prominent ad serving platform. They have joined forces with Frans Vermeulen, a respected advisor in the programmatic startup space and a former executive at FreeWheel, a major video advertising platform. This formidable quartet’s collaboration was forged when Vermeulen joined SpringServe as an advisor in 2020. Their previous professional journeys have been marked by significant industry milestones, including FreeWheel’s acquisition by Comcast in 2014 and SpringServe’s subsequent acquisition by Magnite for $31 million in 2021, a move that underscored the growing importance of Connected TV (CTV) advertising dollars.
The Genesis of Swivel: Addressing an Industry Pain Point
The impetus for Swivel’s creation stemmed from extensive discussions among the founders regarding the potential for a yield optimization technology that could leverage their "in the weeds" understanding of ad server functionalities. Vermeulen elaborated to AdExchanger that the collective experience of building and managing ad servers provided them with a unique perspective on the inefficiencies and manual processes inherent in current Ad Ops workflows.
However, the path to Swivel’s launch was subject to contractual obligations. Following the acquisition of SpringServe by Magnite, Hirsch, Dearborn, and Lin were contractually bound to remain with Magnite for approximately two years post-acquisition. Once these obligations were fulfilled, the founders swiftly reconvened to lay the groundwork for their new venture, which officially commenced operations last year. This period of strategic planning and development allowed them to refine their vision and build a robust technological solution.
Automating Ad Operations: The Swivel Proposition
Swivel’s core value proposition centers on automating the hundreds of micro-adjustments that publisher Ad Ops teams routinely perform across various ad servers daily. These critical, yet often manual, tasks include real-time price floor adjustments, management of query-per-second (QPS) rates to Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) and Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), and a myriad of other operational tweaks designed to optimize campaign performance, enhance user experience, and, most importantly, maximize ad revenue yield.
Frans Vermeulen illustrated the scale of this challenge with a hypothetical scenario: "Consider a publisher with a 10-person ad ops team. There are 1,000 things that I could optimize today, but my team only has the time to do 100 of them." This reality forces publishers to prioritize optimizations that yield the most immediate financial returns, inevitably leaving numerous other potentially valuable optimization opportunities unexplored. Vermeulen further explained, "So, naturally, publishers will default to optimizing the 100 things that drive the most revenue. But that leaves 900 things that I’d love to get to, but they’re smaller campaigns or less important for whatever reason." Swivel aims to bridge this gap by bringing these overlooked optimization opportunities into play.
Beyond automating individual processes, Swivel’s ambition extends to orchestrating optimization efforts across a publisher’s entire ad server infrastructure. Vermeulen highlighted the prevalent complexity in the publisher tech stack: "Our customers use three to seven, on average, different ad platforms for different use cases." This often means employing separate platforms for display, CTV, and audio ads, each with its own distinct ad server. While these platforms may have some level of interoperability, they frequently operate in silos, hindering comprehensive optimization. Swivel’s technology acts as a translator, harmonizing disparate data sets across these diverse servers to enable more effective cross-platform adjustments. The AI engine within Swivel identifies these optimization opportunities and presents them as actionable suggestions, leaving the final implementation to human oversight.
Market Traction and Funding Rounds
The compelling vision behind Swivel, coupled with the extensive industry expertise of its leadership team, has resonated strongly with the investment community. To date, Swivel has successfully secured $8.8 million in funding. This includes a $5.8 million Series A funding round and an initial $3 million in seed funding.
The company’s investor base reflects a strong endorsement from prominent venture capital firms and industry heavyweights. Notable investors include Tribeca Venture Partners, Ardent Venture Partners, Aperiam Ventures, Roster Capital, and Motley Fool Ventures. Furthermore, industry pioneers Mike Shehan and Steve Swoboda, co-founders of the successful SSP SpotX, have also contributed as seed investors, lending their significant experience and market credibility to Swivel.
Currently, Swivel’s primary revenue stream is derived from its subscription-based software model. The company boasts a client roster that includes eight publicly traded publishing companies, representing a total of 15 publishers. While the company is still expanding its disclosure of partnerships, LG Ads has been publicly identified as a key media partner. This early traction signifies the growing demand for sophisticated, AI-powered solutions in the publisher Ad Ops space.
Growth Trajectory and Future Expansion
While Swivel initially focused its efforts on serving the burgeoning CTV and streaming publisher markets, Vermeulen anticipates a significant broadening of the company’s scope. "We anticipate that the company’s focus will expand dramatically by next year," he stated. The company is actively targeting traditional print and web publishers, as well as emerging sectors such as retail media networks, digital audio platforms, and out-of-home (OOH) advertising sellers. This diversification strategy aims to capture a wider market share and cater to the evolving needs of the broader publishing industry.
Swivel currently employs a team of 20 individuals, a figure that is rapidly increasing. The company’s immediate hiring priorities are concentrated on bolstering its product development capabilities and strengthening its go-to-market strategy and sales teams. Concurrently, Swivel is preparing for international expansion, with plans to establish a presence in the UK and European markets by next year, complementing its current focus on the US market. This global outlook underscores Swivel’s ambition to become a leading player in the international ad tech landscape.
Strategic Focus: Orchestration Over Development
In a strategic move that might initially appear counterintuitive given the founders’ extensive background in ad server development, Swivel has firmly stated that it has no intention of building its own ad server. Vermeulen emphatically declared, "We’re never going to build an ad server. Because [ad servers] are already pretty good at what they do, and they’re already advancing in and of themselves."
Instead, Swivel’s strategic advantage lies in its ability to automate and optimize the ad operations tasks across these existing ad servers, rather than competing with them. This approach not only leverages the strengths of established ad server technologies but also positions Swivel to benefit from their ongoing advancements. Furthermore, this business model proactively mitigates the risk of direct competition from ad servers as they increasingly integrate their own AI-based optimization tools. In fact, Vermeulen openly encourages such innovation from ad server providers, noting, "He recommends they do."
Swivel’s unique selling proposition hinges on its ability to provide a level of cross-platform orchestration that individual ad servers are not designed to deliver. "No one’s going to orchestrate across [platforms]," Vermeulen asserted. By building a solution that bridges the gaps between disparate ad servers, Swivel is uniquely positioned to facilitate seamless integration and optimization. The founders’ intimate knowledge of how ad servers function, gained from their direct experience in building them, provides Swivel with a distinct advantage in enabling these competing platforms to work together harmoniously. This deep understanding allows Swivel to effectively "translate" between different systems, unlocking new levels of efficiency and revenue potential for publishers navigating the complexities of modern digital advertising.
