Starling today announced its launch as a new supply-side platform built from the ground up for connected television with a mission to build the advertising infrastructure for the next era of CTV advertising. The company combines strategic technology and assets with continued platform investment, growing publisher relationships, and leaders from across television, advertising technology, and media.
Starling enters a market where tens of billions of advertising dollars are transacted across platforms built for an earlier era of digital advertising. The result is a CTV ecosystem defined by fragmentation, inconsistent audience and content signals, and too little transparency for buyers and sellers. Starling is designed to address these challenges and bring opportunities to help advertisers activate against CTV signals.
The company is backed by MBL Partners and strategic investors, whose investment strategy combines capital with hands-on operating expertise to build and scale technology businesses. Unlike platforms that originated in desktop display or mobile advertising, Starling is built around the unique characteristics of television: premium video, content and program-level intelligence, live programming, sophisticated audience signals, and greater transparency across every transaction.
As Starling emerges from stealth, the company is focused on three principles it believes should define the next generation of CTV infrastructure. Intelligence unlocks more of the content, program, and audience signals within every CTV impression and makes them actionable to drive outcomes for advertisers.
Authenticity provides insight into exactly where ads ran at the show-level, so advertisers can optimize as needed. Innovation brings emerging CTV experiences including pause ads, home-screen placements and new interactive formats into the programmatic marketplace, creating new opportunities for publishers and advertisers to engage audiences.
The Starling platform puts those capabilities to work today, helping buyers better understand what audiences are watching while enabling publishers to capture more of the value of their content. Starling data shows that publishers that pass content signals see higher CPMs.
Starling will be led by Executive Chair and Acting Chief Executive Michael Bassik alongside a leadership team with experience spanning television, media, advertising technology and programmatic infrastructure. MBL Partners Operating Partner Sean Miller will serve as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer.
Reshmi Nair, a former senior engineering executive at Magnite, joins as Chief Technology Officer. Wil Danielson, formerly SVP, Business Planning and Sales at Nexstar Media Group, Inc., will serve as Chief Revenue Officer. Together, the team will lead expansion as the company invests in technology, publisher partnerships, and new capabilities.
With Starling, advertisers receive reporting down to the show and program level, providing greater visibility into campaign delivery. They also gain more efficient access to premium inventory, including live sports, tentpole programming, and other high-value viewing opportunities with publishers including Xumo. As Starling grows, its focus will remain on creating greater value for advertisers and publishers across the CTV ecosystem.
About Starling
Starling is a connected TV supply-side platform (SSP) built around a simple idea: some of the most valuable signals in connected TV come from understanding what people watch. We combine content and program-level intelligence, trusted publisher relationships, and investment in innovation and emerging experiences to help advertisers reach audiences in meaningful moments, make more informed media investments, and achieve better outcomes.
About MBL Partners
MBL Partners is a private investment firm run by operators. The firm invests through growth equity, private credit, and structured solutions; advises PE groups, family offices, and boards on diligence, strategy, and interim leadership; and builds production AI systems for enterprises and mid-market businesses the same infrastructure that runs its own firm. Drawing on more than 40 years of direct operating experience and its proprietary THRIVE Playbook, MBL invests alongside its partners with aligned incentives, an unrelenting focus on truth, and execution speed as a core differentiator. The firm has deployed more than $250 million across dozens of investments spanning healthcare, energy, technology, media, and services.
