IMAN Capital Partners (IMAN), a private investment firm founded by former Apollo Senior Partner Andrés Rubio, has led a Series A preferred equity investment in Blip Billboards (Blip), which operates an online marketplace for 1,500-plus digital billboards across 300 billboard operators catering to 150,000 mostly new-to-OOH advertisers to-date.
Blip also operates a national advertising business under the commercial brand Adkom, which delivers the largest U.S. network of previously fragmented independent OOH inventory to national advertising agencies. Leveraging Blip’s technology, Adkom provides efficiency and scale for national agencies to buy over 40,000 digital and static locations across the United States under a single network banner.
The USD8 billion US Out-of-Home advertising industry comprises 300,000 displays, of which more than 150,000 are roadside or bulletin billboards, and 10,000 of those bulletins are digital. OOH is the fastest growing sector of the US traditional advertising sector (OOH, TV, newspaper, magazine and radio), with digital billboard advertising growing at rates in excess of 10 per cent annually, comparable to online advertising.
Andrés Rubio, Managing Partner of IMAN Capital Partners, says: “We have been very impressed by the rapid growth that Blip has had over the past four years in the attractive OOH sector. As an investor, we will support the continued rapid growth of Blip’s local and national advertising businesses while fostering the development of other products and services, including financial services, for the independent billboard operator ecosystem.”
Brent Thomson, Founder of Blip, says: “With IMAN Capital Partners and Andrés Rubio we have found the ideal partner for Blip to continue our rapid growth. We look forward to working together and help an increasing number of small and medium sized businesses to build their brands and target their audiences more efficiently by being able to access hundreds of digital billboards that span the United States, from New York to Los Angeles.”
Andrés Rubio will join Blip’s board of directors.
Gould Ratner acted as legal adviser to IMAN Capital Partners.
Blip is the second investment for the IMAN group. Earlier this year, a group of investors led by IMAN’s UK affiliate, IMAN Capital Partners Ltd, acquired a majority stake in Crealsa Investments Spain, a Spanish provider of web solutions for the financing of invoices and promissory notes to SMEs on a nationwide basis.
