Moving Upstream: Our Evolution to Direct Sales Automation

We're announcing a significant evolution in our company's direction and a new name that reflects it.

TheViewPoint is now Upstream.

This isn't just a rebrand. It's a reflection of where we've been headed for the past two years: building modern infrastructure to automate direct sales for CTV publishers.

From Commodity SSP to Publisher-First Innovation

We acquired TheViewPoint in 2022, and the vision was clear: get as close as possible to the supply side and solve the problems that actually matter to publishers. We grew the SSP in the years following the acquisition, but learned there was limited opportunity to drive either innovation or monetization in this commoditized business.

Meanwhile, however, we held on to our strategic belief around direct media execution and instead doubled down on the business to build a direct sales automation infrastructure (i.e. in parallel to the SSP). Direct-sold campaigns generate the majority of revenue for CTV publishers. Yet the process has remained stubbornly manual. It eventually became clear that we should make this the sole flagship product; today, we're announcing this supply-side technology under a new name: Upstream.

The Direct Sales Bottleneck

If you're a CTV publisher, you know this pain intimately.

You routinely field and fulfill hundreds of insertion orders from individual buyers. Each campaign requires manual trafficking and manual touchpoints throughout the lifecycle. It's time-consuming, error-prone, and stands in stark contrast to the automated efficiency that programmatic advertising has enjoyed for years. The irony isn't lost on us: your highest-value inventory requires the most manual work.

And here's what often goes unspoken: the operational burden limits how much you can scale. Direct relationships are incredibly valuable, but there's only so much manual volume your team can handle. You're potentially leaving demand and revenue on the table simply because the operational lift is too great.

Our technology addresses this gap by fully automating direct-sold campaigns through native integrations with publisher ad servers. We're not talking about header bidding, SPO, or another flavor of programmatic optimization. This is direct ad-server level integration that automates IO execution, trafficking, delivery optimization, and reconciliation—while preserving your control over pricing, inventory, and brand safety.

Moving Upstream: Efficiency Without Intermediaries

The Upstream approach eliminates traditional ad tech intermediaries, bringing you closer to advertiser demand while delivering measurable operational benefits:

• Faster campaign activation – Reduced manual touchpoints mean campaigns launch faster and scale more efficiently

• Operational efficiency – Automated trafficking eliminates manual order processing, saving your team hours per campaign

• Real-time transparency – Direct ad server integration enables immediate visibility into campaign performance and delivery

• Scalable direct relationships – Handle more volume without proportionally scaling your operations team

• Publisher control preserved – Maintain control over inventory, pricing, brand safety, and the premium, relationship-driven nature of direct sales

What makes this powerful is the combination of efficiency and the preservation of premium value. 

As our CEO Philip Inghelbrecht explains: "We acquired TheViewPoint because we believed the CTV supply chain could and must evolve beyond the inefficient constructs borrowed from digital display and video. Upstream is the manifestation of that belief. By automating direct sales, the most valuable but operationally intensive part of publisher revenue, we're not just optimizing the supply path, we're fundamentally shortening it. Publishers shouldn't have to choose between premium direct relationships and operational efficiency. With Upstream, they get both."

Direct and Programmatic: Both Matter

An important note: this isn't about replacing programmatic. Programmatic and direct sales serve different advertiser objectives and campaign goals. Programmatic offers dynamic optimization, flexible inventory access, and broad demand connectivity. Direct sales offer guaranteed access, premium partnerships, and strategic relationships. Both matter. Both will continue to exist.

What's changed is that automation is no longer exclusive to programmatic. Publishers can now operate efficiently across both channels, and advertisers can transact in the way that best fits their objectives without being forced to choose between premium access and operational simplicity. This is additive to your existing SSP relationships and programmatic infrastructure, not substitutional. You're simply gaining better tooling to support multiple transaction models in parallel.

Major Publishers Embrace Direct Sales Automation

We didn't build this in a vacuum. Over the past two years, we've been working closely with leading streaming publishers to operationalize this technology at scale. Upstream's technology now fully automates direct-sold campaigns through native integrations with publisher ad servers, including NBCU, Paramount, Tubi, and Warner Bros Discovery, in addition to Disney through its technology stack.

Michael Reidy, SVP SMB Growth, Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal: "The industry has needed a more modern approach to direct sales for some time. Automation that reduces operational friction while preserving the value of direct relationships is essential to how premium publishers scale, and platforms like Upstream are helping move the ecosystem forward."

David Futterman, VP, Paramount Advertising: "Upstream's technology delivers significant value, and the platform's evolution to enable direct sales automation is a key advancement to reduce operational complexities and drive greater long-term efficiency."

Peter Graseck, Senior Vice President of Sales at Tubi: "We partnered with Upstream because they understand that automation shouldn't mean commoditization. Upstream preserves Tubi's premium positioning and direct relationships while reducing friction, enabling brands to connect more effectively with our 100-plus million monthly active users, especially younger, hard-to-reach audiences."

Marisa Crocker, VP of Programmatic Operations and Partnerships, Warner Bros Discovery: "As an organization we have embraced efficiency and automation, and we are excited to partner on Upstream. We value our partnership with Tatari and have seen strong results thus far."

What This Means for Advertisers

Direct sales automation isn't just about publisher efficiency. It transforms the equation for advertisers too. By connecting advertisers directly to publisher ad servers, Upstream eliminates traditional DSP and SSP intermediaries, significantly reducing costs and fees. For our initial demand partner (and sister company) Tatari, which works with 400+ brands buying CTV, this means their clients get cleaner supply paths, better CPMs, improved performance, and access to premium reserved inventory.

What's Next

This evolution has been two years in the making, and we're just getting started.

The reality of CTV is that roughly 90% of impressions come from about 10 publishers. We've launched with five of the largest (Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Tubi) which means we're already most of the way there. But more publisher integrations are in the works, and we're excited about what's ahead.

Welcome to Upstream.