Covatic

Covatic is an advertising technology company that provides publishers, media companies and brands with audience targeting, activation and attribution tools that operate without third-party cookies, user IDs or the sharing of individual consumer data. Its architecture relies on edge computing: data is processed locally on users' devices, and the platform uses anonymised signals and cohort codes derived by on-device algorithms and machine learning models to build audience segments that are described as GDPR compliant.

The Covatic platform is organised around three functions — Target (creating and selling premium audience segments), Activate (unifying fragmented first-party data and activating it across platforms) and Attribute (measuring campaign effectiveness). It supports environments where conventional identifiers are unavailable or limited, including connected TV, smart speakers, Safari, Firefox, iOS, mobile apps and the web, and is used to make inventory addressable in the open marketplace via Google's Publisher Provided Signals. Product lines include Covatic Smart Campaigns, an AI-powered in-flight optimisation engine that compares exposed and unexposed audiences to redirect spend toward converting segments, and Covatic Sense, a CTV product intended to move beyond household-level inference to verified human presence detection for individual addressability and cross-device attribution linking TV exposure to mobile actions.

The company describes deployment on more than 1.7 billion devices with nearly 200 million monthly active users. It is led by founder and CEO Nick Pinks, with James Holyhead as Chief Technology Officer, Daniel Pike as Chief Product Officer and Tom McKay as Director of Client Success & Strategic Growth.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Nick Pinks is a chartered engineer who spent seven years at BBC R&D, where he worked on projects including IP Studio and on groundwork for the BBC's 'Future Internet' activities covering personalisation, persuasive media and new content experiences, and later served as a BBC technology transfer manager. Before founding Covatic he was a solutions specialist at Imagine Technology, designing systems for broadcasters and content providers such as ITN, Comcast and Disney. The idea of using personalisation to change the media experience had been in development since 2015, prompted by the view that broadcast manufacturing was struggling with the pace of change and that traditional publishers were constrained by outdated technology; Covatic formally started in February 2017 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford, combining broadcast experts and academic leaders, and has been funded through equity investment.

Business model

Covatic sells its audience platform to publishers, broadcasters, media owners and advertisers on a B2B basis, positioning itself as a next-generation DMP covering audience enrichment, clean room data sharing, attribution, retargeting and audience extension. Customers integrate through a no-code tag deployed via a tag manager, on-device SDKs for richer mobile app signals, or an API for server-to-server integration, and monetise inventory that would otherwise be unaddressable without third-party cookies or user IDs.

Revenue is generated from business customers through subscription SaaS and data-as-a-service arrangements alongside services and consulting, under a B2B2C model in which publishers use Covatic-powered audiences to increase ad yields and eCPMs.

Traction

Covatic states its solution is deployed on more than 1.7 billion devices with nearly 200 million monthly active users, and reports customer results including a 58% increase in ad yields on smart speaker devices, up to 86% more addressable reach on smart speakers and 233% more addressable reach delivered by the platform. A global broadcaster customer testimonial references unlocking addressability across 1.1 billion monthly Publisher Provided Signals impressions. A third-party private-markets profile lists an employee range of about 20.

Latest developments

In August 2026 Covatic launched Covatic Smart Campaigns, an AI-powered live optimisation engine for publishers that analyses exposed and unexposed audiences during a campaign and recommends reallocating spend toward high-converting segments to drive outcomes such as sales, sign-ups, visits and leads; the launch was covered by MediaShotz and PodcastingToday. The company also markets Covatic Sense, a connected TV product based on verified human presence detection for person-level addressability and cross-device attribution.