Marketbridge acquires Channel99, its first technology company

By Sophie Lindqvist

Marketbridge officially announced its acquisition of Channel99 on Tuesday. The 35-year-old B2B marketing firm gains its first technology company. The company did not disclose the deal terms.

The deal adds a specialist in B2B advertising and attribution technology. Its focus reflects questions created by agentic search. Marketbridge CEO Bob Ray gave a concrete example. Channel99 compares one company’s service rankings in LLM chatbot responses with competitors’ rankings.

The software also assesses how paid media and marketing tactics elsewhere affect performance in agentic or generative-search environments, giving clients one cross-platform view of business-media influence.

What does Channel99 actually do?

Channel99 was founded in 2022 by Chris Golec. He previously founded and served as CEO of incumbent B2B demand-side platform Demandbase. The acquired company does not operate as a traditional open-web programmatic DSP. Its technology instead spans Microsoft and LinkedIn, the Googleverse, Meta, and other hubs of business media and influence.

Channel99’s agentic-search product answers two linked questions. The first concerns where a company’s services appear in chatbot answers. The second tracks how campaigns on other channels change those results.

Ray said the next step is an attribution framework measuring how agentic performance contributes to sales or conversions, comparable to the measurement a media buyer applies to another channel. Ray gave no launch date for that framework.

That distinction matters for practitioners. Until the attribution model exists, Channel99 can measure visibility and cross-channel effects. Available evidence does not establish that chatbot exposure produces revenue. Because Marketbridge did not disclose deal terms, buyers cannot compare budgets or calculate the cost of a software-plus-services package.

Why did the deal happen?

Ray and Golec are old acquaintances from media and marketing agency DWA. Dentsu acquired DWA in 2017 and used it as Merkle’s B2B arm. The two executives also live in the same Marin community in the Bay Area.

During recent business discussions, they identified a shared problem: independent technology companies struggle to maintain relevance with large platforms while pursuing relationships with big enterprise clients.

Golec’s reaction added a material qualification. Ray discussed independent technology companies’ barriers to growth. Golec’s expression suggested more skepticism than agreement. What persuaded him was Ray’s passion for building a technology-enabled service company. The pair had already pitched enterprise companies together and partnered on events.

Ray characterized the transaction as a people-based business. He also called Marketbridge a “next-gen integrated agency consulting company.” Ray said the model centralizes acquisitions and avoids duplicated capabilities. That differs from a traditional holding company. Such companies generally leave acquired agencies independent.

Marketbridge’s existing portfolio includes an influencer agency, a media agency, a PR and communications agency, and an analytics consultancy. The acquisition marks a shift from buying service capabilities to owning software across major business-media environments.

What changes for B2B buyers?

Golec had been struggling to scale Channel99’s sales and marketing organization. He also wanted to raise additional capital. He said: “In a way, this alignment gives us both speed in the marketplace.” For media buyers and enterprise marketing teams, the potential benefit is one relationship spanning advisory work, campaign execution and cross-platform advertising analytics across major business environments.

The budget effect cannot yet be calculated. Marketbridge disclosed no acquisition price. Buyers cannot compare the cost of a software-plus-services package against separate agency and adtech purchases using the information released.

The next test is whether Marketbridge can turn Channel99’s monitoring into a working attribution model and deliver the marketplace speed Golec cited as the deal’s main benefit.