Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. Is Criteo actually going to sell this time?

Vista Equity, Quinti Capital offer to buy French ad tech firm Criteo🔒
Sources: Reuters, MediaPost
July 6th, 2026

Summary: Vista Equity Partners and Quinti Capital submitted a buyout offer last week for Criteo that values the ad tech company at more than a 50% premium above its recent share price, according to multiple news outlets. Criteo hasn't decided how to respond yet, and a company spokesperson declined to comment on the rumors.

The market liked the news. Criteo's US-listed shares jumped as much as 29%🔒 on Monday, giving the company a market cap of about $1.16B. That's a small number relative to Criteo's business; the company pulled in $1.9B in revenue last year and adjusted EBITDA of $407M.

Criteo's Q1 revenue was down 6% to $425M, guidance got cut, and shares fell as much as 20% after losing $75M+ in spend commitments from Uber Eats and Target Roundel.

The company has been in the M&A rumor mill on a somewhat regular basis in recent years.

Opinion: With a market cap of $1.16B and 2025 revenue of $1.94B, investors are valuing Criteo at less than one year's worth of revenue. Criteo is trading at roughly 0.6x revenue, while ad tech and software companies with growth stories often trade at 3-5x revenue or more. Sure, Criteo hasn’t been a growth story for a number of years now, but it’s not like the company is bleeding money; it’s highly profitable! A profitable business in a high-growth sector trading below 1x revenue is the kind of discount PE firms look for.

Criteo feels like a company that’s been preparing for its “moment” for years now. That “moment” would be the maturation and consequent consolidation of commerce media. Once that happens, there would be clear winners and losers, and many retailers would probably decide that trying to run an ad business on their own isn’t worth it. They would likely hand their retail media businesses over to the largest intermediary in the space and happily cash their checks. That intermediary should be Criteo. And if agentic commerce takes off? That should only be more wind in Criteo’s sails.

But no one is quite sure when that moment will come. Enter private equity. PE can get a great deal right now, come in and do some operational clean-up, refocus the business, and stay the course until the moment arrives.

For Criteo, going private (at a nice premium, to boot) would allow the company to build strategically and patiently, without the short-term pressures of being a public company.

Everyone wins. Get the deal done!

Thank you for reading the Free U of Digital Newsletter.

Read the full version by upgrading to Premium!

The U of Digital Weekly Newsletter is intended for subscribers, but occasional forwarding is okay!

To subscribe visit Uof.Digital/Newsletters or contact us directly for group subscriptions.

And remember, U of Digital helps teams drive better outcomes through structured education on critical topics like AI, programmatic, CTV, commerce media, and much more. Interested in learning more about how we can supercharge your team? Drop us a line!