The news: Private equity firm Novacap will buy digital advertising measurement and analytics firm Integral Ad Science (IAS) for $1.9 billion, the companies announced Wednesday. The deal will take IAS private after four years of public trading and is expected to close this year.
The acquisition is the latest in a string of private equity firms plunging into digital advertising—marketing technology M&A reached a five-year high last year. While there was a lull in the spring due to tariff uncertainty, Q2 2025 nonetheless had the third-highest quarterly deal value in the past four years, per S&P Global. The US drove 53% of the $780 billion in global deal value.