FreeWheel, the premium video ad management platform owned by Comcast, has acquired French video supply-side platform StickyAds.tv in an effort to strengthen the companys programmatic video capabilities and bring together traditional and programmatic sales capabilities.

The acquisition aims to create an end-to-end solution that enables clients to manage their video inventory across multiple screens and access demand from any channel, while ensuring a brand-safe, TV compliant experience.

FreeWheel was itself purchased by Comcast in 2014 for $360m as the company sought to develop ways to personalise online advertising and strengthen its digital video capabilities, and now the purchase of StickyAds implies that the company is investing further in this area as mobile and digital video continue to dominate consumer time.

“We are very excited to make this announcement,” said Doug Knopper, co-founder and co-CEO of FreeWheel. “We are bringing together two companies who deeply understand the opportunities for the New TV ecosystem on both sides of the Atlantic. StickyAds.tv has been a preferred SSP partner since September 2015 and in that short time we have been thoroughly impressed by both the quality of their platform and the knowledge of their team.”

The addition of StickyAds will strengthen FreeWheels automated ad tech platform, and provide publishers with ways to maximise monetisation of video inventory across both traditional direct sold and market demand sources while still ensuring full control, compliance and creative safety.

“We are exceptionally excited to join FreeWheel and the Comcast Platform Services family,” said Hervé Brunet, CEO and co-founder of StickyAds. “We are convinced that the combination of our companies will benefit our respective client bases, most notably the largest TV broadcasters. Our focus on a private exchange, service-side architecture is perfectly aligned with FreeWheels technology in addressing the specific needs of premium publishers.”