Viant Technology Q2 Earnings Call Highlights

Key Points

• Record Q2 performance: Revenue rose 34% year over year to $104.3 million, while adjusted EBITDA increased 26% to $14.2 million, exceeding guidance. Operating cash flow and free cash flow also grew 36% and 39%, respectively.
• CTV and proprietary technology drove growth: CTV spending increased nearly 50% and represented more than half of platform spend, while Direct Access handled over 80% of CTV spending. Viant is also accelerating the rollout of TVision attention data, Household ID and IRIS Content ID.
• Positive outlook with continued investment: Viant expects Q3 revenue of $107.5 million-$110.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $18.5 million-$19.5 million. Early adoption of its AI-powered Outcomes product reached 5% of year-to-date ad spend, although the TVision acquisition is expected to pressure EBITDA margins in the near term.

Viant Technology NASDAQ: DSP reported record second-quarter results, with revenue and adjusted EBITDA exceeding the company’s guidance as demand for connected television, proprietary data capabilities and AI-driven advertising tools increased.

Revenue rose 34% year over year to $104.3 million, while contribution ex-TAC, a non-GAAP measure of revenue less traffic acquisition costs, increased 24% to $60.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA climbed 26% to $14.2 million, above the high end of Viant’s outlook.

“We delivered strong second quarter performance, achieving new company second quarter records across all key metrics,” Co-founder and CEO Tim Vanderhook said. He said growth was broad-based across most customer verticals and was supported by CTV demand, greater use of Viant’s intelligence products and adoption of ViantAI.

CTV spending and Direct Access adoption increased

Customer CTV spending increased nearly 50% in the quarter and accounted for more than half of total platform spend. Video, including CTV, represented more than 65% of platform spend, while emerging digital channels including CTV, streaming audio and digital out-of-home collectively made up more than 60% of advertiser spending, up from 54% for all of 2025.

CFO Larry Madden said healthcare, public services and travel led performance across customer verticals. Viant’s five largest verticals, representing about 60% of platform spending, grew nearly 30% year over year.

The company also cited accelerating adoption of its Direct Access offering, which enables advertisers to transact directly with premium publishers. More than 80% of CTV spending on Viant’s platform was transacted through Direct Access during the quarter, up from slightly more than 50% in the first quarter.

Vanderhook said the offering can reduce CPMs by 35%, while improving transparency and targeting capabilities. In July, Viant expanded Direct Access to streaming services powered by Publica. The company expects more than 90% of CTV platform spending to flow through Direct Access in the near future as publishers are added.

Responding to an analyst question, Madden attributed the increase in Direct Access usage to ongoing customer education around cost savings, the quality of participating content owners and OEMs, and the company’s go-to-market approach with new customers.

TVision integration and proprietary intelligence

Viant said its integration of TVision, acquired May 1, is proceeding ahead of schedule. TVision provides attention data, including in-room presence, co-viewership and eyes-on-screen engagement, across linear TV, connected TV, YouTube and Prime Video.

Viant is working to use TVision’s attention insights as a pre-bid signal, allowing advertisers to assess the estimated attentive value of impressions in real time. The company said 42 pilot campaigns targeted TVision high-attention inventory segments, with more than 80% producing higher conversion rates than benchmarks and an average conversion lift of 1.4 times.

The company reported specific pilot results including a 14-times lift for a home-improvement brand, a 3.7-times lift for an online university and a 3.1-times lift for a state tourism office. Viant said it is accelerating the commercial rollout of the technology while technical integration continues through the year.

Viant also highlighted Household ID, its patented identity solution, and IRIS Content ID, which enables show-level and scene-level contextual targeting. Household ID is embedded in 80% of programmatic bid requests and 96% of CTV requests, according to the company. IRIS Content ID is now present in nearly 50% of the bid stream, and Viant plans integrations with Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Roku, DirecTV, Sling TV, Spectrum and Philo during the third and fourth quarters. Those launches are expected to increase penetration to about 70% of biddable inventory by year-end.

ViantAI gains early adoption

Viant said its Outcomes product, a fully autonomous advertising product launched earlier this year, accounted for 5% of total ad spend year to date. Outcomes is designed to automate campaign planning, execution and optimization based on an advertiser’s budget, campaign dates and goals.

Management described the product as an effort to capture performance-oriented advertising budgets that are often directed to search and social platforms. Chris Vanderhook, Viant’s co-founder and chief operating officer, said the company’s immediate priority is to increase adoption among existing clients before pursuing performance advertisers outside its current customer base.

The company said it sees a substantial opportunity from the ongoing movement of advertising budgets from linear TV to connected TV. Chris Vanderhook said industrywide CTV spending stands at approximately $37 billion, compared with $51 billion remaining in linear TV spending.

Viant also said it is engaging with larger enterprise advertisers through its sales force and request-for-proposal pipeline. Management said the company’s largest pipeline of prospective business is supported by both new customer opportunities and expanding budgets from existing customers. Tim Vanderhook said some pipeline activity could contribute in the fourth quarter, but that the larger impact is expected in 2027 because much of the business follows annual cycles.

Profitability, cash flow and outlook

Non-GAAP operating expenses increased 24% year over year to $46 million, partly reflecting the TVision acquisition. Madden said TVision created an approximately 150-basis-point drag on adjusted EBITDA margin in the second quarter and is expected to create about a 200-basis-point drag in the third-quarter outlook.

Despite those expenses, Viant reported non-GAAP net income of $9.9 million, up from $8 million a year earlier. Non-GAAP basic earnings per Class A share rose to $0.15 from $0.10.

Cash flow from operating activities rose 36% to $28.5 million, while free cash flow increased 39% to $22.4 million. Viant ended the quarter with $193.1 million in cash and cash equivalents, no debt and access to a $75 million undrawn credit facility.

The company repurchased $1 million of shares year to date under its existing authorization and has returned $60.6 million to shareholders since beginning its repurchase program in May 2024. As of Aug. 7, $39.4 million remained available under the authorization.

• Third-quarter revenue guidance: $107.5 million to $110.5 million.
• Third-quarter contribution ex-TAC guidance: $65 million to $67 million.
• Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA guidance: $18.5 million to $19.5 million.
• Expected adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of contribution ex-TAC: 29%.

At the midpoint of its outlook, Viant expects third-quarter revenue to rise 27% year over year, contribution ex-TAC to grow 25%, and adjusted EBITDA to increase 19%. Management said it expects contribution ex-TAC growth to continue accelerating sequentially through year-end, aided by recently onboarded customers, existing-client expansion, CTV demand, TVision and political advertising.

Viant also appointed Craig Abrahams to its board of directors. Abrahams previously co-founded Caesars Interactive Entertainment and led Playtika as president and CFO.

About Viant Technology (NASDAQ:DSP)

Viant Technology Inc Nasdaq: DSP is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) advertising technology company that delivers data-driven solutions to marketers and agencies. Its core offering, Adelphic, is a programmatic demand-side platform (DSP) that empowers clients to plan, execute and optimize digital ad campaigns across desktop, mobile, connected TV and other emerging channels.

Complementing its DSP, Viant offers PeopleCloud, a people-based data management platform (DMP) that aggregates and normalizes first- and third-party audience data.

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