• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 23, 2022

Citing long-term demand from the digital ad industry for its verification, fraud detection, brand safety and contextual targeting solutions, Wall Street equities firm BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage of DoubleVerify Wednesday with an "outperform" rating.

"DoubleVerify adds to our preference for 'picks and shovels' ad tech, joining Innovid and peer IAS on our list," BMO analyst Daniel Salmon writes in a report sent to investors today.

"[DoubleVerify] offers a greater degree of safety from regulatory and platform change risk and features an emerging CTV [connected TV] business, and growth opportunities across both the open web and walled gardens," he explained, adding: "The latter includes the potential addition of Facebook and Instagram Feeds (i.e. not currently in our model) and we quantify that opportunity within."

DoubleVerify, which completed an initial public offering in April 2021, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and currently and at the time of publishing was trading at $24.50 per share with a market capitalization of $3.89 billion. BMO set a target price of $37 per share.