The CTV Deal Landscape: M&A and Strategic Partnerships Driving Consolidation - Part 3

The 2025–2026 M&A and Strategic Partnerships Shaping Connected TV from Windsail Partners examines how consolidation and strategic alliances are accelerating the convergence of data, media, and technology across the connected TV ecosystem. As CTV matures, buyers are increasingly focused on acquiring or partnering for infrastructure that delivers scale, identity, measurement, and workflow integration — a trend reflected in recent transactions and partnerships involving platforms such as The Trade Desk, Roku, Amazon, Disney, and NBCUniversal. Rather than pure scale acquisitions, the report highlights how strategic deals, minority investments, and commercial partnerships are being used to accelerate closed-loop measurement, expand addressable inventory, and unify cross-screen activation. Together, these transactions illustrate a broader shift in CTV M&A away from experimentation and toward platform integration — where control, interoperability, and outcome visibility are driving long-term value creation.

The CTV Consolidation Wave: M&A, Partnerships and 2026 dealmaking