Comscore

Comscore was founded in July 1999 in Reston, Virginia. The company was co-founded by Gian Fulgoni, who was for many years the CEO of market research company Information Resources, Inc. and Magid Abraham, who was also an ex-IRI employee and had served as president of IRI in the mid-1990s.

On March 30, 2007, Comscore made an initial public offering of shares on the Nasdaq, using the symbol "SCOR".On February 11, 2014, Comscore announced the appointment of Serge Matta as chief executive officer, effective March 1.Co-founder Gian Fulgoni, who had been serving as chairman emeritus since 2014, replaced Serge Matta as chief executive officer on August 10, 2016. On September 2, 2016, Comscore received a letter from NASDAQ that it was in danger of being delisted from the exchange on September 12 unless Comscore filed its 2015 annual report and reports for the first two quarters of 2016. On February 6, 2017, Comscore announced they would not meet the NASDAQ-imposed deadline to "complete its financial restatement and regain compliance with Nasdaq's listing requirements." Because of this missed deadline, "Comscore's common stock may be suspended from trading and delisted from Nasdaq." If Comscore is delisted from NASDAQ and their trading is suspended, they advise they intend to "be quoted on the OTC Markets." In November 2017, According to the reports, Gian Fulgoni co-founder and CEO retired.On April 23, 2018, it was announced that Bryan Wiener was appointed as the company's chief executive officer, effective May 30. Wiener had previously served as chairman of 360i, a 1,000-person advertising agency known for its ability to help brands capitalize on change through innovation and a data-driven approach to marketing.On April 1, 2019, CEO Bryan Wiener announced that he, along with president Sarah Hofstetter would be stepping down from their respective roles at Comscore, citing irreconcilable differences in strategy with the company's board.On November 5, 2019, Bill Livek was appointed by Comscore's Board of Directors as Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice Chairman. Prior to joining Comscore, Mr. Livek served as Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Rentrak, where he spearheaded the next generation of products to precisely measure movies and TV everywhere. In February 2022, Livek announced he was going to retire and step down as CEO once the board found a replacement.

Mergers and acquisitions

Comscore acquired Media Metrix in a deal announced in June 2002. Earlier, the Federal Trade Commission announced it would block a bid by NetRatings to acquire Media Metrix.

Media Metrix originated as PC Meter, a business unit of market research company NPD Group, and began publishing statistics in January 1996. In July 1997, it changed its name to Media Metrix. In October 1998, Media Metrix merged with a rival, Relevant Knowledge. The company went public as NASDAQ:MMXI in May 1999, reaching a market cap of $135 million on its first day of trading. In June 2000, the company acquired Jupiter Communications for $414 million in stock and changed its name to Jupiter Media Metrix. In the aftermath of the dot-com bubble collapse and associated downturn in internet marketing spending, Jupiter sold the Media Metrix service to rival Comscore for $1.5 million in June 2002.In May 2008, Comscore announced its acquisition of M:Metrics, a company that measured mobile content consumption. The transaction involved a cash payment of $44.3 million and the issue of approximately 50,000 options to purchase shares of Comscore common stock to some M:Metrics unvested option holders.Comscore announced in October 2009 the acquisition of Certifica, an internet marketing company based in Santiago, Chile. The acquisition enhanced Comscore’s presence in the Latin American market.In February 2010, Comscore announced an agreement to purchase the ARSgroup, headquartered in Evansville, Indiana.On July 1, 2010, Comscore announced that it had acquired the products division of Nexius, Inc.Comscore then acquired Nedstat for approximately $36.7 million on September 1, 2010.In February 2015 Comscore US entered into a partnership with Kantar owned by WPP with an equity stake purchase.

In September 2015, Comscore and Rentrak announced a merger of the two companies. The move was meant to combine Comscore's digital media measurement capabilities with the TV measurement capabilities of Rentrak to create a cross-platform media measurement firm, perhaps capable of challenging Nielsen N.V. in the media measurement space. Under terms of the agreement, Comscore agreed to acquire Rentrak in an all-stock deal valued at about $732 million, with Rentrak shareholders receiving 1.15 shares of Comscore per owned share of Rentrak.The Comscore-Rentrak deal closed on February 1, 2016, with the final transaction being valued at $767.7 million.