The Trade Desk

The leading independent DSP globally, competing directly with Google DV360 while differentiating through neutrality, transparency, and CTV strength

The Trade Desk is a global technology company that operates one of the world's largest independent demand-side platforms (DSP), empowering advertisers and their agencies to plan, manage, optimize, and measure data-driven digital advertising campaigns across a wide range of channels including connected TV (CTV), display, video, audio, native, and social. Founded in 2009 by Jeff Green and Dave Pickles, the company has grown to become a dominant force in programmatic advertising, distinguished by its independence from media ownership — unlike walled gardens such as Google and Meta, The Trade Desk does not own the media it sells, aligning its interests with advertisers. The platform leverages massive data sets, real-time bidding infrastructure, and advanced AI — most notably its Koa AI engine — to help buyers make smarter bidding and targeting decisions. The Trade Desk supports identity resolution through its Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) initiative, an open-source, privacy-conscious alternative to third-party cookies that has gained broad industry adoption. Its OpenPath initiative provides direct access to premium publisher inventory, reducing supply chain complexity and improving transparency. The Trade Desk is publicly traded on NASDAQ and consistently ranks among the highest-revenue independent AdTech companies globally. It serves major advertising agencies, holding companies, and brand advertisers, and has established itself as a critical infrastructure layer for the open internet's advertising ecosystem. With a strong focus on CTV and streaming, the company is well-positioned as linear TV budgets continue migrating to digital channels.