The video ad tech consolidation trend continues on, with the latest deal seeing Ooyala acquire London-based Videoplaza for an undisclosed sum. The deal comes just 2 months after Ooyala itself was acquired by the big Australian telecom provider Telstra, which was a previous investor. Jonathan Wilner, VP, Product at Ooyala, told me in an interview that these are just the first 2 steps in Telstra's broader ambition to help content providers better monetize their video, particularly by using data.

Videoplaza is a video ad manager that has focused mainly on European and Asian broadcasters, who have been rapidly moving content online. The company serves 100 clients in 35 countries; it says it counts half of European broadcasters as customers. Recently Videoplaza branched into programmatic, launching Konnect, a supply side platform to help its broadcast customers tap into buyers' accelerating programmatic ad spending.

Jonathan said Ooyala and Videoplaza have worked closely together on mutual customers such as MediaCorp in Italy and VGTV in Norway. Ooyala was drawn to Videoplaza because of its focus on data (a key differentiator for Ooyala itself), its cultural fit and mutual vision to enable personalized, cloud-based TV. Jonathan noted Ooyala also works with others like LiveRail and FreeWheel and will continue to do so per customer interests.

The big motivation for Ooyala to own its own video ad platform was to gain greater control in innovating for customers who have been asking Ooyala for improved ways to monetize. Ooyala sees synergy in helping content providers manage and monetize their video through better use of data and tools, plus new business models.

Short-term, Ooyala will assist Videoplaza in entering the large U.S. ad market while Videoplaza will help Ooyala more deeply penetrate in Europe and Asia.

The Ooyala-Videoplaza deal is just the latest of many in the video ad tech space this year. Previous deals include Comcast-FreeWheel, Facebook-LiveRail, RTL-SpotXchange, Brightcove-Unicorn and Opera-AdColony, among others.