Agent-to-agent infrastructure for advertising, built from the ground up.

Today we’re announcing a $5 million Series A led by Chicago Ventures, and the acquisition of Compliant, the media quality and governance company. Compliant keeps its name and operates as a pubX company, led by CEO Jamie Barnard — who takes on the role of President, Global Demand Growth at pubX.

pubX began on the publisher side, spending years helping publishers price and sell their inventory. Compliant, founded by former Unilever and P&G executives, has focused principally on the demand side, delivering measurable value to global brands and their agencies. Putting those two vantage points in one company is what shaped this: infrastructure built from the ground up for Buyer Agents and Seller Agents to transact directly — governed on both sides of every buy, built on AdCP.

“For years, brands have searched for high-quality, high-performing inventory with real, relevant and engaged audiences. Compliant built the Data Integrity and CTV Quality Indexes so that they could do that with certainty rather than speculation,” said Jamie Barnard, CEO of Compliant. “Inside pubX, those media quality and governance signals sit in the decision itself, so an agent weighs them before it buys. This is what gives each CMO the confidence to trust pubX’s agents.”

“Agents let us finish what was started,” said Andrew Mole, CEO and co-founder of pubX. “You tell them how you buy, you sign off where it matters, and every page of the brief gets read every single time. For the first time, the infrastructure has caught up with what brands want to achieve with their advertising and how publishers want to sell.”

The funding supports our expansion in the United States, the build-out of a demand-side business serving brands and agencies, continued development of the buyer and seller agents on AdCP, and the integration of Compliant’s signals across the platform.

Andrew’s on stage this afternoon at AdEF’s Founder Showcase, in conversation with Bob Lord (President, Horizon Media). Tomorrow, October 7, we’re running a live agent-to-agent media buy at a private executive lunch during Advertising Week New York. A campaign for Reckitt’s Mucinex brand will go from brief to live placement, with Reckitt’s trading team approving the plan at key stages and publishers including Paradium.AI, USA TODAY Co., and The Daily Beast reviewing and accepting the campaign as it happens. Attendance is by invitation.

👉 Check out our exclusive coverage on AdExchanger → https://www.adexchanger.com/ai/pubx-raises-5-million-and-buys-digital-governance-startup-compliant/