Southampton academic sells start-up to NASDAQ company

A company started by University of Southampton academic Simone De Liberato has just been sold to the NASDAQ listed company Criteo – a French ad tech firm.

Simone started AdQuantic three years ago, together with his colleague Cédric Chanal. Using their knowledge of physics and computer science they developed algorithms that could boost the performances of their clients’ search advertising campaigns.

Simone joined the University of Southampton in 2012 and he is a Royal Society Research Fellow in the Quantum, Light and Matter group, in Physics and Astronomy.

He said: “It is fantastic that AdQuantic has grown into such a successful company that it has been sought out and bought by a NASDAQ company. It is a reflection of the entrepreneurial work we did in launching our product and I am delighted that I am able to explore future opportunities at an entrepreneurial university like Southampton.”