Rembrand and Whisper World Merge Into WRLabs, With IPO 'Absolutely' on the Table

Rembrand and Whisper World, two companies that insert brands into video after it's filmed, are merging in a largely stock-based deal expected to close in January — and an IPO is already on the roadmap.

The combined company, WRLabs, will be led by Whisper World founder Manav Kapoor as group CEO and co-chair. Rembrand CEO Omar Tawakol becomes co-chair. An IPO is "absolutely" a possibility, Tawakol said, adding that WRLabs will raise money after the deal closes.

What does the merger change for ad buyers? Mostly scale and price. Whisper World's in-content ad business is much larger than Rembrand's, and Tawakol said the deal will grow the company about fourfold and make its in-content ad business "instantly profitable." Whisper World completes about 30,000 insertions a year, and Rembrand's AI already handles roughly 70% of them in South Africa and India.

How the two sides fit together

For Rembrand, the merger brings a decade of proprietary footage to train its models. Whisper World built its business by placing virtual billboards into TV shows across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, using more than 100 visual effects artists editing each scene by hand.

"Now you have an AI company that has proprietary data that isn't just burning cash," Tawakol said.

For Whisper World, the deal brings technology that can handle far more insertions without new hires. It also opens a U.S. entry point through Rembrand's supply partnerships with Paramount and Hallmark, Kapoor said. Building that alone would take longer and cost more, he added.

WRLabs will act as the parent company and fund research into AI video editing. The structure after closing:

• Rembrand becomes the technology arm, building VFXAgent, described as a "coding agent for visual effects"
• Whisper World keeps its name and continues selling in-content ads
• Spaceback, which Rembrand merged with last year, turns social posts into paid ads
• MRFactory, a Madrid studio known for its work on Money Heist, runs virtual production studios

Why virtual placement was hard to buy

Virtual product placement has historically been difficult to buy at scale, Tawakol said. Brand and show owners negotiated every placement, down to the scene and whether the product would sit next to an actor with a competing endorsement deal.

Whisper World, founded in 2013, took the negotiation out. It inserts virtual billboards into established shots after the actors have left the frame, so directors don't have to sign off. Show owners approve the inventory without knowing which brand will fill it.

The placements run as 15-second units with minimums for time on screen and share of screen, and they're measured in gross rating points (the standard TV audience metric) through Kantar — the same currency advertisers use for linear spots.

"They solved a problem nobody had solved, including us," Tawakol said.

Unilever, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble have bought the format for five years, Kapoor noted. The deal also hands Rembrand training data it couldn't get from YouTube: premium TV and film footage, plus the artists' original edits. Tawakol said the model improved every week as Whisper World's artists used it and flagged where it fell short.

The numbers behind the deal

Tawakol founded Rembrand in 2022, after selling BlueKai to Oracle in 2014 and Voicea to Cisco in 2019. The company raised $23 million in Series A in January 2025, bringing total funding to $31 million.

He declined to give a current valuation but said the roughly $80 million figure that has been reported dates to that Series A, when Rembrand had about $2 million in bookings. Bookings are now about 20 times that size, he said.

The timeline moved fast. The two companies first met in June 2025 as partners, started merger talks that November, signed a term sheet in February and reached a definitive agreement this month.

WRLabs will have about 450 employees in eight countries and work with roughly 3,000 advertisers, reaching over 2 billion viewers a month, according to the company. Tawakol said teams will largely keep their current roles and no layoffs are planned.

IPO plans are still early, but Tawakol is bullish. "If the market doesn't adjust, we get a good valuation," he said. "If it does adjust, [investors will] be favoring ones that could drive profit. We win either way."