• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 28, 2020

True[x], an innovative ad technology company acquired by Disney as part of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, is poised to announce a sale of all or part of its assets to location-based ad-technology company Gimbal, MediaPost has learned.

True[x], which was founded by Joe Marchese and David Levy and sold to Fox for an estimated $200 million in 2014, reportedly has been on the block for months.

Marchese eventually went on to become head of ad sales for Fox, but left in 2019 to form a variety of ventures and Attention Capital, a venture-capital firm focused on the kind of provable attention-based marketing models that were his original inspiration for True[x].

Gimbal -- a Los Angeles-based advertising and marketing technology company, known for utilizing so-called “beacons” technologies to help marketers target and serve ads to consumers at point-of-purchase and other physical locations -- will more than double its organization with the acquisition of True[x] and the merger will combine companies focused on “the location and connected TV” spaces.

“It’ll enable better targeting, creative, and measurement solutions for advertisers looking to bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds,” said a person with knowledge of the merger.

Terms of the deal were not known at press time, but True[x] reportedly has annual revenues of less than $100 million.

In 2018, former ABC Vice President of Digital Ad Sales and Operations Pooja Midha was named president of True[x].