The story
The original name of the company was 24/7 Media which was a result of a unification of Petry Interactive, Interactive Imaginations and Advercomm, Inc. It had a stock market launch in August 1998 following which it went through a period of rapid expansion through organic growth and series of acquisitions.
A very difficult situation arose in the wake of the tech bubble burst of 2001. As a result, 24/7 Media merged with a company called Real Media and changed its name to 24/7 Real Media. As part of this merger it acquired an advertising technology platform called Open AdStream. According to a video recording of the CEO produced 9 years later, it was able to capitalize on a mistake by DoubleClick. DoubleClick had agreed to buy Real Media for 11 million dollars. DoubleClick tried to change the offer to 10M at the last moment. Thus, the sellers – a Swiss company PubliGroupe – gave 24/7 Media an opportunity to acquire Real Media for no-cash 2 million dollar of stock swap. This acquisition came at the right time as 24/7 Media's stock was trading at 10 cents. The Real Media acquisition brought intellectual property, Open Adstream, additional revenues and clients. Incidentally, because of the 24/7 Media stock appreciation in subsequent years, PubliGroupe received in payments a total of over 25 million dollars by 2007, instead of DoubleClick's $10M.
The turnaround started shortly thereafter according to the stock price. In July 2002 the company raised 7 million dollars in equity funding. In 2003 24/7 Media licensed its patents on behavioral targeting to 6 of its rivals, DoubleClick included. In January 2003 24/7 bought a web analytics company Insight First. In 2004 24/7 Media acquired an SEM technology company Decide Interactive. In 2006 Open AdStream and Insight First analytics were integrated.
24/7 Media was acquired in 2007 by WPP at $11.75 a share, a turnaround from the low of 39 cents a share in 2003. Journal The Economist reported that WPP acquisition of 24/7 Media was a reaction to Google acquiring 24/7's main rival DoubleClick. Microsoft was a contender to buy 24/7 Media at the time. A year later in 2008 Microsoft was still interested.
24/7 Media is in digital marketing technology, serving advertisers, agencies and digital publishers worldwide. The 24/7 technology platform is used by its two specialized business units: Real Media Group (ad network and ad serving) and Media Innovation Group (digital marketing agency).
From Wikipedia’s article on 24/7 Media, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4