Providence pays €200 million for acquiring Helsinki-based Smartly.io

Smartly.io, Helsinki, Finland-headquartered company providing social video advertising technology for Facebook platforms, announced that it entered into an investment agreement for getting the American investors from Providence Equity Partners as major shareholder in the company.

The deal was made for €200 million ($223 million), valuing the company at €300 million. As part of the investment, former Publicis Groupe executive and Adobe Inc. and DoubleVerify Inc. board member Laura Desmond will chair Smartly.io’s board.

Smartly.io, founded in 2013 by CEO Kristo Ovaska and Tuomo Riekki, provides SAAS-based, creative and media management tools for marketers looking to reach consumers on Facebook and Instagram in an automated fashion.

The company focuses its offering on video and image formats within social-media news feeds and Stories where branding and direct-response marketing can overlap. Smartly is profitable and expects to generate €70 million in revenue in 2019. The company has been growing at rates of 40%+ in the past years.

The deal comes as Smartly was acquired by Highland Europe  in 2017 in a $20M deal. The current owners of the company - the founders, the employees owning the shares, Highland Europe, Lifeline Ventures and Matti Alahuhta - remain shareholders in the company.