The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk, Inc.
Company typePublic
Industry
Founded2009 (2009)
Founders
HeadquartersVentura, California,
United States
Number of locations
30+[1] (2026)
Key people
  • Jeff Green (CEO)
  • Dave Pickles (CTO)
Products
  • Digital advertising
  • media buying
Revenue US$2.44 billion (2024)
US$427 million (2024)
US$393 million (2024)
Total assets US$6.11 billion (2024)
Total equity US$2.95 billion (2024)
Number of employees
3,900[2] (2025)
Websitethetradedesk.com
Footnotes / references
[3]

The Trade Desk, Inc. (TTD) is an American multinational technology company that produces and services programmatic marketing automation with personalized real-time digital content. Headquartered in Ventura, California, it is the largest independent demand-side platform (DSP) in the world.[4] TTD operates with over 400 partners[5] at more than 30 locations worldwide.[1]

Overview

TTD operates an omnichannel platform with data analytics capabilities and support, online platforms, media formats,[6][7] enterprise APIs, and self-service publishing for brands and advertisers.[8] Competing with Google, Facebook Ads, and others,[9][10] its personalized ad content is utilized by Disney, NBCU, Roku, Walmart[11] and Spotify.[12]

History

Founding - IPO, 2009-2015

The Trade Desk was co-founded in 2009 by Jeff Green and David Pickles.[13][14] They met at Microsoft, after its acquisition of Green's real-time digital advertising auction firm, AdECN, in 2007.[14][15]

In 2012, the company was included as a key partner in Facebook's launch of the real-time bidding (RTB) advertising platform, Facebook Exchange.[16]

In 2015, The Trade Desk was named among the top 10 of America's Most Promising Companies by Forbes.[17] Founders Green and Pickles were also named as Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of The Year 2015 in the Greater Los Angeles region.[16][18]

Public company, 2016–present

On September 21, 2016, The Trade Desk became a public company.[19] The company reached a market cap of US$40 billion by 2021.[20]

The Trade Desk integrated connected TV buying and measurement directly into its platform in 2017;[21] acquired marketing insights firm AdBrain.[22][23] The firm also improved transparency in programmatic buying by enabling buyers to see all selling or reselling parties to a bid request.[24]

In 2018, the firm launched its programmatic ad buying platform in China, which provides partnership access between marketers and Chinese media companies, such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu Exchange Services.[25][26] It also launched new AI tools: an AI forecasting engine named Koa, a new user interface, new tools for mapping strategies called The Trade Desk Planner, and a proprietary global user identity resolution tool called Unified ID.[27]

In 2019, Amazon opened connected TV (CTV) Apps integrated with Amazon Publisher Services, enabling the purchase of ad inventory for third-party TV content provider The Trade Desk, through Amazon Fire TV devices.[28] That September, The Trade Desk launched an advertising campaign, "Media for Humankind", to position itself as a "more transparent digital advertising"[29] alternative to Google and Facebook.[30][31]

In mid-2020, Unified ID 2.0 (UID 2.0) launched as a second iteration to leverage a post-cookie internet using encrypted email and phone number data to create a secure identity standard.[32] The identity resolution software was adopted by Disney[33] and Paramount,[34] as well as by major advertisers, including Procter & Gamble and Unilever.[35]

In early 2022, The Trade Desk launched OpenPath, granting advertisers direct access to its premium digital advertising inventory.[36] Publishers using OpenPath include Conde Nast, Reuters, and The Washington Post.[37]

The Trade Desk launched Kokaia, a new media buying platform that integrates advances in distributed AI, measurement, and deep learning algorithms with digital media buying, in June 2023.[5]

In March 2024, NBCUniversal announced that its broadcast content for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics would be available, in partnership with The Trade Desk, to online automated programmatic marketers, for the first time.[38][39] That May, Netflix announced its first expansion of its advertising partnerships to include The Trade Desk, Magnite, and Google DV360 (formerly DoubleClick).[40]

TTD announced OpenSincera, in May 2025, an API to generate metadata on advertising quality and the health of the digital advertising supply chain.[41] That year, TTD also added a "Deal Desk" to its Kokai platform, designed for advertisers to manage deals directly with publishers.[42]

The Trade Desk was added to the S&P 500 Index in July 2025.[43]

It has consistently been named to annual lists by, among others, Fortune magazine.[44][45] It was included in the Forbes Global 2000 in 2022,[46] and ranked 22nd on TIME's "America’s Growth Leaders of 2026" list.[47]

Financials

The Trade Desk raised about $120 million of venture capital (VC) from investors by 2016, including from VC firms Founder Collective and IA Ventures.[48] In 2017, revenue rose 52 percent to $308 million,[13] then rose to $477 million in 2018.[25] In 2019, third-quarter revenue was reported as $164 million, attributed to the growth of connected TV advertising.[49]

It reported a 95% customer retention rate for 27 straight quarters in 2020, and an annual revenue of US$836 million in the same year.[50] The Trade Desk finished 2022 with a total spent on the platform of $7.8 billion,[51] and annual revenue of over $1.5 billion.[52]

After 33 consecutive earning periods or meeting, or exceeding, financial expectations, TTD performed below analyst expectations by about 2%, in Q4 2024, and stock value decreased by more than 32% in February 2025. The Trade Desk's revenues for the quarter were $741 million; total 2024 revenues grew 26%, to $2.4 billion;[53] company stock rebounded in the first quarter of 2025.[54]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Office Locations | The Trade Desk". www.thetradedesk.com. Retrieved 2023-02-15.
  2. ^ Schiff, Allison (2025-12-17). "The Trade Desk Lays Off Staff One Year After Its Last Major Reorg". AdExchanger. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  3. ^ "The Trade Desk, Inc. 2024 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". SEC. February 21, 2025.
  4. ^ Vargas, Anthony (2025-11-18). "Omnicom Allegedly Pivoted A Chunk Of Its Q3 Spend From The Trade Desk To Amazon". AdExchanger. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  5. ^ a b "The Trade Desk launches Kokai, a media buying platform". The Financial Express. 2023-06-09. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  6. ^ "Open internet gets 50% of eyeballs, yet just 15% of ad spend: Tejinder Gill, Trade Desk - Exchange4media". Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media. 2025-12-17. Retrieved 2026-02-28.
  7. ^ Bahirat, Tanuja. "I Reviewed the 7 Best Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) for 2025". learn.g2.com. Retrieved 2026-02-28.
  8. ^ "Clinch Marks Industry Milestone as the First Client-Side Ad Server to Integrate Unified ID 2.0 | Clinch". www.clinch.co. Retrieved 2026-02-28.
  9. ^ Vargas, Anthony (2025-11-18). "Omnicom Allegedly Pivoted A Chunk Of Its Q3 Spend From The Trade Desk To Amazon". AdExchanger. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  10. ^ Sparks, Daniel. "The Trade Desk Announces Audience Unlimited: What You Need to Know". www.msn.com. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  11. ^ AOL (2025-10-29). "1 Excellent Growth Stock Down 54% to Buy Before 2026". www.aol.com. Retrieved 2026-02-28.
  12. ^ "The Trade Desk Partners with Spotify and More for Audio Programmatic – Lovely Mobile News". Retrieved 2022-02-16.
  13. ^ a b Tom Metcalf (31 August 2018). "Ad Man Inspired by Goldman Becomes a Billionaire". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  14. ^ a b Chowdhry, Amit. "How Jeff Green Took The Trade Desk From A Simple Idea To A Programmatic Ad Giant". Forbes. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  15. ^ Martinez, Arlene (July 21, 2019). "Ventura's The Trade Desk returns to where it all started". Ventura County Star. Retrieved 2019-07-22.
  16. ^ a b "The Trade Desk Inc. (TTD), Interview with Jeff Green, CEO". Nasdaq. November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  17. ^ "The Trade Desk - 2015-09-25 - America's Most Promising Companies: The Top 20 Of 2015". Forbes. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  18. ^ "The Trade Desk, Inc". SEC. February 22, 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-20.
  19. ^ "Trade Desk CEO hopes IPO will rebuild 'trust' between ad tech companies and Wall Street". Archived from the original on 2017-05-21. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  20. ^ Shields, Ronan (2022-05-11). "The Trade Desk weathers Q1 headwinds with $315 million in revenues marking a 43% increase". Digiday. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  21. ^ Heine, Christopher (September 21, 2017). "The Trade Desk's New Product Helps Advertisers Reach Consumers on TV and Digital". Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  22. ^ "The Trade Desk acquires the assets of Adbrain Ltd". Reuters. October 25, 2017. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  23. ^ Shields, Ronan (September 1, 2017). "The Trade Desk and White Ops ink deal to block fraudulent traffic before it is bought". The Drum. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  24. ^ "Trade Desk Clashes With Google Over Transparency Initiative". AdExchange. July 22, 2019. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
  25. ^ a b Graham, Megan (May 31, 2019). "This US ad tech company is cracking into the Chinese market, and Wall Street loves it". Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  26. ^ Jhonsa, Eric (March 26, 2019). "The Trade Desk Remains a Pretty Unique Story – Tech Check". The Street. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  27. ^ Shields, Ronan (May 21, 2019). "How The Trade Desk Is Integrating With Prebid to Boost Its Unified ID". Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  28. ^ Graham, Megan (July 26, 2019). "The Trade Desk hits 52-week high on deal to sell video ads on Amazon Fire TV". CNBC. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  29. ^ Murphy, Paige (September 24, 2019). "The Trade Desk takes aim at Google and Facebook in a new campaign". AdNews. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  30. ^ Wodinsky, Shoshana (September 26, 2019). "The Trade Desk Focuses on People, Not Programmatic in Latest Campaign". AdWeek. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  31. ^ Graham, Megan (September 26, 2019). "The Trade Desk's new ad campaign pokes Google and Facebook in the ribs". AdWeek. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  32. ^ "The Trade Desk Is Building Version 2.0 of Its Unified ID" AdWeek
  33. ^ "Unilever first to test Disney’s identity integration with Trade Desk" Marketing Dive
  34. ^ "Paramount Enables Unified ID 2.0 for Connected TV Ad Sales" NextTV
  35. ^ "Procter & Gamble Is Doing The Unified ID 2.0 Thing" AdExchanger
  36. ^ "SPO Is Evolving Thanks To Direct Publisher Connections And A Push For Sustainability" AdExchanger
  37. ^ "Trade Desk to counter Google's ad grip with tool for publishers" Reuters
  38. ^ "NBCUniversal Leans Into AI In Upfront Ad Sales Push". Yahoo. March 20, 2024. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
  39. ^ "The 'crème de la crème': 2024 Paris Olympics goes programmatic on Peacock". The Current. March 20, 2024. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
  40. ^ "Netflix Says Ad Tier Has 40M Users, Plans to Bring Ad Tech In-House in Shift From Microsoft" Hollywood Reporter. May 15, 2024
  41. ^ "Sincera Offers A Free API For Some Of Its Prized Metrics". AdExchanger. 2025-05-13. Retrieved 2026-02-28.
  42. ^ "The Trade Desk Launches Deal Desk, Its Bid To Make Deal IDs Not Terrible". AdExchanger. 2025-06-05. Retrieved 2026-02-28.
  43. ^ "This Magnificent Tech Stock Is Soaring After Joining the S&P 500. Should You Buy It?". Nasdaq. Retrieved February 27, 2026.
  44. ^ "The Trade Desk" Fortune
  45. ^ "100 Best Medium Workplaces". Fortune. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  46. ^ "Trade Desk" Forbes
  47. ^ Hu, Charlotte. "America's Growth Leaders of 2026". TIME. Archived from the original on 2025-12-19. Retrieved 2026-02-28.
  48. ^ Haggin, Patience (2016-09-07). "Trade Desk's IPO Plan Values Ad-Tech Player at $573M". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  49. ^ Sleffo, George P. (November 7, 2019). "THE TRADE DESK BETS BIG ON CONNECTED TV AS REVENUE JUMPS 38 PERCENT". Ad Age. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  50. ^ "Trade Desk Revenue 2015-2021 | TTD". www.macrotrends.net. Retrieved 2022-02-16.
  51. ^ "The Trade Desk’s bumper quarter has some important caveats" DIGIDAY
  52. ^ "Trade Desk Revenue 2015-2023" Macrotrends
  53. ^ Friedman, Wayne. "Trade Desk Misses Q4, Stock Plummets". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved 2025-10-28.
  54. ^ "The Trade Desk Q2 Preview: Can Kokai Cement the Q1 Rebound After a Rough Q4?". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved February 27, 2026.
  • Official website
  • The Current (News resource by theTradeDesk)
  • Business data for The Trade Desk, Inc.:
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