Season 5, Episode 9: AdTech M&A and the business cycle (with Terence Kawaja)

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Terence Kawaja, the CEO and founder of LUMA Partners, a boutique investment bank focusing on the digital media sector. Terry is a high-profile advisor for transactions in the marketing and advertising spaces, and LUMA Partners publishes the infamous LUMAscapes market maps for those ecosystems.

The topics of our discussion include:

• Terry's general perspective on the digital advertising fundraising and M&A environment at the start of 2025;
• Why 2024 was so slow regarding digital advertising fundraising and M&A;
• Whether AdTech M&A follows the general business cycle;
• Whether the social media platforms are acquisitive;
• How the changing composition of the FTC impacts the outlook for ad tech M&A;
• Which companies might be underestimated as buyers of AdTech;
• Whether the widespread adoption of AI tools within the digital advertising space is an accelerant for M&A;
• Whether the current digital media environment is closely comparable to any historical point in time.

Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:

• INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.
• ⁠⁠⁠Clarisights⁠⁠⁠. Marketing analytics that makes it easy to get answers, iterate fast, and show the impact of your work. Go to⁠⁠⁠ clarisights.com/demo⁠⁠⁠ to try it out for free.
• ContextSDK. ContextSDK uses over 200 smartphone signals to detect a user’s real-world context, allowing apps to deliver perfectly timed push notifications and in-app offers.

Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

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