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March 31, 2021 | Tom Ballard

Company co-founded by former Knoxvillian announces a $1.4 billion majority acquisition

A company co-founded by a graduate of Farragut High School announced this week a $1.4 billion majority acquisition by Vista Equity Partners.

The company is TripleLift that was launched in 2012 by Eric Berry, Ari Lewine,  and Shaun Zacharia, the latter being the individual who was born in Oak Ridge and raised in Farragut. Today, it is one of the largest advertising technology platforms in the world, having pioneered native advertising.

Since graduating from the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, the team has built four product lines across 13 different formats, each with elements of customization not found anywhere else in the industry.

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021. Berry will remain as Chief Executive Officer and will continue serving on the Board of Directors. True Ventures and Edison Partners, two early investors in TripleLift, will remain invested in the company.

Click here to read the news release about the transaction. There was also an insightful post from Laconia, an early investor in TripleLift that can be found here. This particular statement caught our attention: “In many ways, TripleLift symbolizes the best of venture capital’s potential.” Later, the post further underscored the point with this statement: “But what truly separates TripleLift from the rest of the pack is their capital strategy. They checked their ego at the door and based their success on their growth instead of valuation, building a market leader on less than $20 million of total capital raised.”


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