FreeWheel Launches New Partner Portal, Advancing Its Open Platform Strategy for Streaming Advertising

Key Terms

ctv-first technical

A ctv-first approach means a company prioritizes Connected TV (streaming on smart TVs and devices) as its main channel for advertising, content distribution, or product experiences. For investors, it signals where the company expects to reach and monetize audiences — much like choosing to build a storefront on a busy highway instead of a back alley — and can affect revenue growth, marketing efficiency, and how future performance is measured.

ai-powered technical

"AI-powered" describes technology that uses artificial intelligence to perform tasks, make decisions, or analyze information automatically. It’s similar to having a highly skilled assistant that can learn from data, recognize patterns, and improve over time, helping to make processes faster and more accurate. For investors, this means better insights and more efficient operations, potentially leading to smarter investment choices.

ai‑driven optimization technical

AI-driven optimization is the use of artificial intelligence tools to automatically improve business processes, decisions, or products by analyzing data and testing alternatives faster than people can. For investors it matters because these systems can lower costs, boost revenue or reduce risk—like giving a company a smart thermostat that continually learns and fine-tunes settings to save energy and improve comfort—potentially making the business more efficient and valuable over time.

apis technical

APIs are sets of rules that let different software systems talk to each other, like standardized doorways that let apps, data services and websites exchange information without needing to be rebuilt each time. For investors, APIs matter because they speed product development, enable digital partnerships and data feeds, create new revenue or cost savings, and introduce operational or security dependencies that can affect growth and risk.

sandbox environments technical

Sandbox environments are safe, isolated spaces where companies or regulators test new software, products, or business models without affecting live systems or customers. Like a test kitchen or a playground for new ideas, they let firms identify bugs, measure real-world effects, and adjust before a full launch; investors watch them because successful sandbox trials reduce rollout risk, speed time-to-market, and can signal regulatory approval paths or competitive advantage.

agentic ai copilots technical

Agentic AI copilots are advanced software assistants that can not only follow instructions but also make decisions, take actions, and pursue goals on behalf of users with minimal supervision — like a trusted junior employee who proposes solutions and executes tasks. Investors care because these systems can change how companies operate, boosting productivity and cutting costs while creating new revenue opportunities, but they also introduce execution risk, oversight and regulatory questions that can affect profits and valuations.

yield optimization financial

Yield optimization is the ongoing effort to increase the income or return an investor gets from an asset or portfolio by changing how it’s managed—such as shifting holdings, adjusting time horizons, or improving how interest and dividends are collected and reinvested. It matters to investors because small improvements in income or efficiency compound over time, like tightening the sails on a boat to catch more wind, and can meaningfully boost total returns or reduce risk without needing more capital.

New centralized hub lets partners build once, deploy broadly to quickly deliver CTV-first and AI-powered solutions to premium publishers

Launch Partners include DanAds, Operative, Placements AI, Swivel, and Watching That

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- FreeWheel, the leading global technology platform for the streaming advertising ecosystem, today announced the launch of Partner Portal, a centralized hub that enables partners to create, test and scale solutions for premium publishers. Partner Portal accelerates innovation by enabling specialized, publisher specific applications on top of FreeWheel’s operating system, spanning areas such as AI‑driven optimization, planning, and automation to address the distinct needs and objectives of the premium TV ecosystem. Among the first partners to integrate with Partner Portal are DanAds, Operative, Placements AI, Swivel, and Watching That.

As streaming becomes central to TV advertising, the industry’s pace of innovation has not always kept up. Fragmented onboarding, limited visibility into platform capabilities, resource intensive integrations, and difficulty scaling across publishers have slowed progress at a time when workflows are becoming more complex and demand for premium CTV continues to grow.

Partner Portal addresses these challenges by expanding how approved partners can securely connect to FreeWheel Streaming Hub. Whether it is for creative selection, intelligent pacing or troubleshooting agentic AI copilots, partners can request access to APIs, test integrations in secure sandbox environments, and launch solutions for shared publisher customers—all within a single, unified interface. This approach reduces the need for bespoke, one-off builds while maintaining the controls required for premium television.

“Partner Portal gives FreeWheel partners a faster, more secure way to build and bring new capabilities to market without sacrificing the trust and control publishers deserve,” says Matt Clark, VP of Strategy and Partnerships at FreeWheel. “Built on FreeWheel Streaming Hub, it reflects our ‘built in, build on’ approach: standardized access without sacrificing flexibility. Unlike one‑size‑fits‑all tools, its purpose built around CTV workflows, supporting how premium TV is bought, sold, and managed today.”

As streaming advertising evolves at an increasingly rapid pace, publishers need fast, secure access to tools that solve core challenges such as campaign management, yield optimization, and measurement, without adding complexity to their existing tech stacks or relinquishing control. Partner Portal provides a trusted yet open environment where publishers can seamlessly integrate new capabilities, maintain full control over permissions, and unlock AI‑powered solutions that streamline operations and create stronger connections between buyers and sellers.

Initial partners building and launching solutions through Partner Portal include DanAds, Operative, Placements AI, Swivel, and Watching That, highlighting that Partner Portal can support a range of tools from campaign operations and operational control, without increasing operational burden for publishers.

“With self‑service now a must‑have for modern TV publishers globally, integrating DanAds with FreeWheel Streaming Hub via Partner Portal enables a consistent, branded buying experience that connects directly to premium inventory across regions,” said Peo Persson, Co-founder, and CCO at DanAds. “That combination helps publishers unlock new advertiser demand, protect pricing, and scale efficiently without adding operational complexity.”

“Managing revenue across increasingly fragmented linear and digital environments is one of the biggest challenges premium media companies face today,” said Bryan Scivolette, VP Product Management at Operative. “By integrating Operative’s sales, planning and revenue insights directly into the yield management platform through FreeWheel Partner Portal, we’re simplifying workflows, automating key processes, and enabling companies with an intelligent, end-to-end view of performance that drives more effective revenue outcomes across every deal and screen.”

“We’re seeing even the most sophisticated publishers move beyond fragmented point solutions and swivel-chair operations as the demands on ad sales continue to grow,” said Evan Bowen, Chief Business Officer at Placements AI. “As a long-time partner and through our integration with Freewheel Partner Portal, the largest publishers, broadcasters, and RMNs trust Placements AI to connect the stack and transform their business through ad sales orchestration and agentic AI. The bar has been raised, and the winners are doing, not discussing.”

“Premium TV workflows today are fragmented, and publishers need faster, more coordinated execution across the systems they already use,” said Frans Vermeulen, President and Co-Founder at Swivel. “Through FreeWheel Partner Portal, we can help our shared customers streamline campaign workflows, reduce manual operational overhead, and act on monetization opportunities with greater speed and precision.”

"Every streaming publisher is accountable for operational problems they can't see across a stack that now spans dozens of partners and systems. Partner Portal lets Watching That's operations control platform plug directly into FreeWheel so publishers can finally see the full picture of their ad operations, and act on it before revenue walks out the door," said Cameron Church, CEO & Founder, Watching That.

Future releases will include partner access to FreeWheel MCP Server to empower AI models to standardize how partners access FreeWheel tools and data without custom integrations.

In conjunction with this release, FreeWheel is also relaunching its partner site. For partners interested in learning more about Partner Portal or to request access can visit freewheel.com/partnerportal.

About FreeWheel

FreeWheel empowers all segments of streaming advertising ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit freewheel.com, and follow us on X and LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260422922019/en/

Media Contacts:
Emily Miller
Emily_Miller@comcast.com

Source: FreeWheel