🔎 Spotlight #10: Inside StackAdapt
The Canadian adtech company helping brands grow, and the first LaunchPad Spotlight to hit double digits.
The founding story: building smarter advertising from Toronto
StackAdapt was founded in 2014 by Ildar Shar, Yang Han, and Vitaly Pecherskiy. Their mission was to reinvent digital advertising by building a platform that was transparent, programmatic, and data-driven at its core. What started as three founders in Toronto has grown into one of Canada’s most successful adtech companies, powering campaigns across industries and continents.
At its core, StackAdapt is a demand-side platform (DSP) that helps advertisers plan, execute, and optimize multi-channel campaigns. Whether it’s connected TV, display, native, or audio, StackAdapt’s tech allows marketers to reach the right audience with precision.
For me, it’s especially exciting to write this one. I currently work at StackAdapt, and I get to see firsthand how much care, innovation, and execution goes into making this platform great. It feels fitting that this milestone Spotlight is about a place I’m proud to call home.
What’s new in StackAdapt’s world
StackAdapt has been on a tear. A few highlights from the last couple of years:
Global expansion: new offices and teams in Europe, the US, and APAC
Channel growth: scaling into CTV, DOOH (digital out-of-home), and audio to complement their already strong native and display roots
AI innovation: building smarter tools for campaign optimization and creative testing
The company has quietly become a global adtech force while staying proudly Canadian 🇨🇦
Funding and team at a glance
💰 Raised $USD235M in February led by Teacher’s Venture Growth
👥 Over 1500 employees worldwide, and growing fast
🌎 Teams spanning across North America, EMEA, and APAC
🖥️ Website: stackadapt.com
What is Adtech, anyway?
Adtech (short for advertising technology) is the catch-all term for the tools and platforms that power digital advertising. Every time you see an ad on a website, YouTube video, podcast, or streaming TV show, adtech is working behind the scenes to decide which ad shows up, who sees it, and how much it costs.
At the center of it all are demand-side platforms (DSPs) like StackAdapt. DSPs let advertisers buy ad placements across thousands of websites, apps, and channels in real time, instead of negotiating one-off deals. Think of it like the stock market, but for ads: algorithms decide in milliseconds which ad gets served to which user, based on data, targeting, and budget.
Why does this matter? Because digital ad spend is massive. In 2024, global digital advertising topped $600B USD and continues to grow. Adtech helps brands spend that money more efficiently, measure results in detail, and reach the right audiences without wasting dollars.
For someone outside the industry, adtech can sound abstract, but at its core it’s about connecting brands with the right people in the right moments, and companies like StackAdapt are building the rails that make that possible.
Carving out their space
Adtech is crowded, but StackAdapt has carved out a unique position. Instead of being another DSP chasing scale, they’ve focused on performance and transparency. Marketers trust the platform for reliable targeting, strong reporting, and customer support that actually feels like a partnership.
One of the biggest differentiators is how adaptable the platform is. StackAdapt supports brands from scrappy startups running their first campaigns all the way to Fortune 500s managing multimillion-dollar budgets. The tech is flexible, the UI is intuitive, and the roadmap evolves quickly.
That approach has also made StackAdapt a great place to work. In 2025, the company was recognized as one of the Best Workplaces in Advertising & Marketing in Canada, a testament to its culture of collaboration and innovation. Having been on the inside, I can vouch for how much effort leadership puts into making it not just a fast-growing company, but also a rewarding environment for employees.
Enter Ivy: AI-powered decisions at scale
StackAdapt recently introduced Ivy, their new AI-powered assistant designed to help marketers make faster, smarter, and more data-driven decisions. Ivy pulls from real-time campaign performance and market data to surface insights that would normally take hours to analyze.
For advertisers, this means less time buried in dashboards and more time acting on opportunities. Whether it’s spotting underperforming channels, reallocating budget, or surfacing new audience segments, Ivy aims to be a true copilot for programmatic strategy.
As someone who works at StackAdapt, I find Ivy especially exciting because it shows how committed the company is to building tools that make life easier for marketers, not harder. In an industry where “AI” often gets thrown around as a buzzword, Ivy feels like a tangible step toward making complex decisions simpler and faster.
Expanding the platform: MarTech Email + Data Hub
Beyond channels like CTV, audio, and DOOH, StackAdapt also launched its Integrated Email and Data Hub, bridging the gap between MarTech and programmatic advertising. This new capability lets advertisers manage and activate their customer data seamlessly within StackAdapt, then run personalized campaigns across both email and programmatic channels in one place.
The significance here is huge. Traditionally, programmatic platforms and martech tools have been siloed, forcing marketers to cobble together workflows. By integrating email and data management directly into the DSP, StackAdapt is breaking down those walls and giving advertisers an end-to-end view of their audience.
From my perspective, this is exactly the type of move that cements StackAdapt’s position as more than just a DSP. It’s becoming a broader marketing operating system, giving advertisers the flexibility to unify their strategies without juggling multiple platforms.
The competition and how StackAdapt compares
Globally, StackAdapt competes with big DSPs like The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP, Yahoo! Adtech, and Google DV360. In Canada, they’re the standout homegrown player in a field dominated by US giants.
Where StackAdapt shines is in its combination of ease of use, transparent reporting, and world-class customer support. The Trade Desk is massive, but it can feel complex and enterprise-heavy. Google DV360 is powerful, but often rigid. StackAdapt strikes a balance between being powerful enough for big advertisers, but approachable and scalable for teams just starting out.
My take
Hitting ten spotlights for LaunchPad feels like a milestone, so it only feels right to dedicate this one to StackAdapt. This company has been more than just a job for me, it has been an incredible place to learn, grow, and see firsthand what it looks like when a Canadian tech company executes at a global level.
I’ve only been on the team for just shy of 8 months, and have had the privilege of working alongside some of the sharpest and most collaborative people I’ve ever met. The culture here is fast-moving but thoughtful, ambitious yet supportive. It is rare to find a company that combines startup grit with global scale, but StackAdapt manages to balance both.
For me, being part of this rocketship at such an exciting stage is something I am truly grateful for. Every day I see the impact we’re making for clients and the innovation happening inside the company, and it makes me even more confident in StackAdapt’s future. If you are looking for a Canadian success story that is still growing fast and building with purpose, StackAdapt is one to watch, and one I am proud to call home. Also, my team’s hiring and if you’re looking to join the world of RevOps, don’t hesitate to reach out :)
🧭 StackAdapt Roles — Now Hiring
We’ve been hiring like crazy at StackAdapt, so stay tuned into our next LaunchPad post on Tuesday to see more featured jobs from StackAdapt and other great tech companies in Toronto as soon as they are live 🚀
That’s a wrap on Spotlight #10
If you made it this far, thank you for reading! The 10 issues mark is such a big milestone for me, and I hope these spotlights (as well as the job boards) help you discover companies worth your time, and make the job hunt feel just a little bit less overwhelming. Keep an eye out for next Tuesday’s LaunchPad job drop, and if you know someone looking to break into tech or level up, feel free to share this with them too.
Here’s to building something cool, or better yet, joining something cool. 🚀
