MadHive Ups Google Cloud Deal To $100M With Help From SADA

‘We helped prove what Google could do. We showed how Google could provide the speed and efficiency to run a bid market for advertisements. Google was the only cloud that could provide the 100-millisecond latency in the networks and sub-second response to queries. MadHive validates all the transitions via blockchain. They need a lot of performance,’ says SADA CEO Tony Safoian.

SADA Systems signed an enterprise software company to a $100-million contract with Google Cloud, doubling the size of the original contract.

SADA, a Google Cloud premier partner, helped MadHive, a developer of technology to help its clients improve how they monetize their advertisement spending over streaming media, upgrade the $50-million, five-year contract it signed last year with Google Cloud to a $100-million, six-year contract, said Tony Safoian, CEO of Los Angeles-based SADA.

For SADA, ranked No. 137 in CRN’s 2021 Solution Provider 500, MadHive has in only a few years become its biggest customer and proof that the solution provider was right to hook its wagon to Google Cloud, Safoian told CRN.

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“We feel we’re partners in MadHive’s growth,” he said. ”Google Cloud Platform may be their biggest expense, like it is for many of our clients. They are really betting their business on GCP.”

MadHive was formed as the viewing public started to shift away from traditional television streaming television, said Spencer Potts, president of the New York-based company.

“Local stations wanted to take advantage of IaaS to extend their market reach,” Potts told CRN. ”They wanted a way to find new audiences on streaming television, and to get their advertising on streaming television platforms.”

Station groups work with MadHive to build their streaming business, Potts said.

“We show advertisers where their ads went, how many people went to their web site, and other KPIs (key performance indicators) built on MadHive,” he said. ”This lets stations then send reports to their advertisers. We‘ve seen 100-percent year-to-year growth for the last three years.”

MadHive, working with SADA, signed its first $50-million contract with Google Cloud in July of 2020, Potts said. That followed a three-year period during which SADA helped MadHive deploy cutting-edge technologies such as AI and blockchain to place streaming ads on digital platforms.

“One year into a five-year contract, we have already renegotiated,” he said. ”It was a five-year, $50-million contract, and is now a six-year, $100-million contract. This shows Google we are leaning on their technology promise, letting us hire fewer engineers even as our business grows. We are having very progressive types of communications.”

MadHive started with Google about four years ago as a small business, and is now looking at spending $100 million on Google alone, Potts said.

“Google allowed us to build the technology we need to show where the ads are going.”

MadHive does all its streaming operations in the Google Cloud, building its own intellectual property with its own engineers, Potts said. SADA, meanwhile, is always looking at and evaluating new solutions coming in the long-term, he said.

“SADA provides value like any great advisor,” he said. ”They help us see around the corner to find new ways to help up build our business going forward. They wan to make sure whatever business challenges we have, they are there helping us navigate Google, making sure we have the best resources.”

SADA has been a great partner in the MadHive-Google relationship, Potts said.

“They have a lot of in-house expertise who know how to navigate with Google,” he said. ”They help us see the Google roadmap, see where the technology is going. SADA also gives us effective pricing and Google access.”

When SADA first started working with MadHive, the client was most familiar with AWS, but Google brought the solution provider in to MadHive to talk about its cloud, Safoian said.

“We helped prove what Google could do,” he said. ”We showed how Google could provide the speed and efficiency to run a bid market for advertisements. Google was the only cloud that could provide the 100-millisecond latency in the networks and sub-second response to queries. MadHive validates all the transitions via blockchain. They need a lot of performance.”

Re-negotiating contracts with a provider like Google offers benefits to clients like MadHive, Safoian said.

“Generally speaking, if a customer makes a bigger commitment, it gets better commercial terms,” he said. ”They also get cost consistency, and are better able to predict and model their costs, which is very valuable. And terms will be locked in and comfortable for them.”