Houlihan Lokey Advises Blis Global
Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Blis Global Ltd. (Blis) has been acquired by T-Mobile for approximately $175 million. This transaction strengthens T-Mobile’s marketing capabilities and expands its advertising solutions, offering more relevant ad experiences for consumers, greater value for marketers, and meaningful growth for the business.
Blis is an advertising platform that structures data based on geography rather than identity, linking real-world actions to digital behaviors. Its advanced omnichannel targeting capabilities enable advertisers to connect with audiences often missed by ID-based solutions, ensuring greater accuracy and efficiency. Blis remains at the forefront of innovation, delivering future-proof technology that drives measurable performance and helps advertisers reach and engage audiences across all screens. Founded in the U.K. in 2004, Blis employs more than 300 global employees across 14 offices in 11 countries. The company has been backed by Lloyds Banking Group since 2022.
The acquisition of Blis will bolster T-Mobile’s ability to deliver more addressable omnichannel advertising with future-proof, cookieless technology and targeting capabilities, enhancing T-Mobile’s own marketing efforts and offering a comprehensive solution for other brands. By directly connecting advertisers to ad inventory across any screen, the Blis platform complements T-Mobile’s end-to-end capabilities, making T-Mobile’s campaigns more efficient and empowering advertisers to reach more consumers in a fragmented advertising landscape, especially as traditional signals like cookies continue to diminish.
As part of T-Mobile’s strategic framework for growing new businesses, it leverages its unique assets—embedded customer relationships, broad distribution, strong brand affinity, and the most advanced 5G network—to unlock opportunities that meet clear customer needs in new areas. In the advertising space, the company has successfully evolved internal innovations into distinctive solutions that generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue. The acquisition of Blis further expands and accelerates the growth of this business.
T-Mobile has announced the acquisition of Blis in conjunction with its acquisition of Vistar Media, a leader in programmatic digital out-of-home advertising. Both acquisitions reinforce the company’s commitment to transforming advertising through its T-Mobile Advertising Solutions (T-Ads) business by creating comprehensive solutions that unlock better, more relevant ad experiences for consumers, greater value for marketers, and meaningful growth for its business.
Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Blis. This transaction underscores the team’s deep domain expertise, cross-border capabilities, and continued success advising clients in the adtech and broader front office software sectors.
RELATED: MarTech, Mergers & Acquisitions