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OMR Festival 2018: Expo Stages Lineup Announced

OMR previewed the Expo Stage program for the OMR Festival 2018 (March 22–23, Hamburg), announcing two Expo stages across both days with more than 100 speakers and €30 expo tickets. The article profiles ten speakers and their planned topics: Pablo Rochat (Tinder) on creative Instagram Stories; Saliha Özcan (Sallys Welt) on building a YouTube baking business (her videos have ~270 million views and ~1.2 million subscribers); Jan König (co‑founder, Jovo) on voice applications and Jovo’s seed backing from Betaworks, Lightspeed Ventures and GGV Capital; Daniel Benz (CEO, Asphaltgold) on retailer platform strategy and Instagram reach; Marcus Tandler (Founder & CEO, Ryte) on SEO; Céline Del Genes (Adidas) on global brand strategy; Amy Emmerich (Refinery29) on engaging content formats; Jan Oetjen (United Internet AG) on consumer applications and GDPR/login strategies; Iskender Dirik (Microsoft ScaleUp) on AI in marketing; and Sabrina Hoffmann (Business Insider) on platform and internationalization strategies for publishers.

VC Sven Schmidt Criticizes ProSiebenSat.1 Adtech Strategy

This OMR Podcast episode features entrepreneur and investor Sven Schmidt discussing his investments, past exits and lessons learned. Schmidt explains why he invested in the Essen-based marketplace maschinensucher.de (he is personally involved via a private vehicle), saying the platform already mediates inquiries worth hundreds of millions of euros per month and charges fixed listing fees rather than commissions. He recounts earlier projects including the browserspiel “Pennergame” (which reached over 1 million unique logins per day) and the sale of ICS assets in early 2012, and reviews exits such as getgo.de (sold to CTS Eventim in 2002) and verwandt.de (sold to MyHeritage in 2010). Schmidt also describes domain investments (e.g., restaurant.de, auftrag.de), his time at Accel Partners (where he invested in Prezi, Fiverr and Vinted), and operational involvement in several ICS-era portals. The episode mixes investment rationale, marketplace metrics and retrospective product/monetization lessons.

ProSiebenSat.1 Acquires Kairion to Boost Ad Tech

German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 is acquiring Kairion, a provider of e-commerce media solutions, from Cocomore AG. The deal expands ProSieben’s growing ad tech stack, designed to diversify revenue and strengthen offerings for brands and agencies. Kairion aggregates data and inventory from more than 80 online retail partners, enabling advertisers to tailor campaigns to shoppers’ purchase interests across partnered retailers via a single buying point. The healthcare sector accounts for over half of Kairion’s partnered retailers. Kairion will be added to Advertising Platform Solutions, ProSieben’s hub for ad tech investments, with the potential to enhance addressable TV advertising and mid-term TV retargeting using purchase-intent data. Mittnacht noted cross-portfolio cooperation, including potential links with AdClear for improved measurement and attribution, as ProSieben continues to build an integrated ecosystem alongside other holdings such as AdClear, The Adex, Active Agent and Yieldlab; the move follows related investments in esome and EBX initiatives.