DIRECT DIGITAL HOLDINGS SELECTS HPE GREENLAKE TO DELIVER EDGE-TO-CLOUD SOLUTION IN MULTIYEAR PLATFORM DEAL

Green Tea Technology Instrumental in Forging Relationship with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Ad-Tech Holding Group, Direct Digital Holdings

HOUSTON, Oct. 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Direct Digital Holdings (Nasdaq: DRCT) ("Direct Digital Holdings" or the "Company"), a leading advertising and marketing technology platform operating through its companies Colossus Media, LLC ("Colossus SSP"), Huddled Masses LLC ("Huddled Masses") and Orange142, LLC ("Orange142"), today announced it has selected the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform to build a highly reliable, scalable and secure production environment. Green Tea Technology, an authorized HPE partner, will provide installation and support services.

Colossus SSP will now incorporate the HPE GreenLake platform with its on-premises infrastructure and cloud services across its entire marketplace to support Direct Digital Holdings' sell-side platform. The marketplace manages approximately 136,000 clients monthly, generating over 250 billion impressions per month across display, CTV, in-app video and other media channels.

"HPE GreenLake has enabled Direct Digital Holdings to deliver a modern cloud experience to customers with flexibility to meet their demands in real time," said Alexia Clements, VP of worldwide go-to-market for HPE GreenLake Cloud Services, HPE. "We're focused on delivering differentiated cloud solutions that allow our partners to serve as trusted advisors and help customers modernize their IT environments to improve their business outcomes."

"Our relationship with HPE is strategic for our company, as we partner with HPE GreenLake for our digital infrastructure for our supply-side technology platform," said Mark Walker, co-founder and CEO of Direct Digital Holdings. "Thanks to the flexibility provided by HPE GreenLake, we have the ability to continue our accelerated growth as we bring new technology products to our media partners. Green Tea Technology has been an excellent resource and partner in helping us leverage HPE for this strategic platform solution."

Brad Davis, the owner and CTO of Green Tea Technology, stated that the HPE GreenLake platform is more than a year ahead of its competitors in terms of innovation and edge-to-cloud capabilities. Davis believes that the platform is an excellent solution for Direct Digital Holdings, considering their rapid growth and expansion underway.

About Direct Digital Holdings

Direct Digital Holdings (Nasdaq: DRCT), owner of operating companies Colossus SSP, Huddled Masses, and Orange 142, brings state-of-the-art sell- and buy-side advertising platforms together under one umbrella company. Direct Digital Holdings' sell-side platform, Colossus SSP, offers advertisers of all sizes extensive reach within general market and multicultural media properties. The company's subsidiaries Huddled Masses and Orange142 deliver significant ROI for middle market advertisers by providing data-optimized programmatic solutions at scale for businesses in sectors that range from energy to healthcare to travel to financial services. Direct Digital Holdings' sell- and buy-side solutions manage approximately 136,000 clients monthly, generating over 250 billion impressions per month across display, CTV, in-app and other media channels.

About Green Tea Technology

Green Tea Technology is a leading IT solutions provider headquartered in Austin, Texas. As an accredited HPE Certified GreenLake integration partner , the company is at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge Hybrid cloud solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of businesses, both large and small. With a commitment to innovation and sustainability, Green Tea Technology is dedicated to architecting robust, scalable, and environmentally-friendly IT infrastructures.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws and which are subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties.

As used below, "we," "us," and "our" refer to the Company. We use words such as "could," "would," "may," "might," "will," "expect," "likely," "believe," "continue," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "project" and other similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements, but not all forward-looking statements include these words. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements.

All of our forward-looking statements involve estimates and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements are based on assumptions that we have made in light of our industry experience and our perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors we believe are appropriate under the circumstances. Although we believe that these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, many factors could affect our actual operating and financial performance and cause our performance to differ materially from the performance expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: our dependence on the overall demand for advertising, which could be influenced by economic downturns; any slow-down or unanticipated development in the market for programmatic advertising campaigns; the effects of health epidemics; operational and performance issues with our platform, whether real or perceived, including a failure to respond to technological changes or to upgrade our technology systems; any significant inadvertent disclosure or breach of confidential and/or personal information we hold, or of the security of our or our customers', suppliers' or other partners' computer systems; any unavailability or non-performance of the non-proprietary technology, software, products and services that we use; unfavorable publicity and negative public perception about our industry, particularly concerns regarding data privacy and security relating to our industry's technology and practices, and any perceived failure to comply with laws and industry self-regulation; restrictions on the use of third-party "cookies," mobile device IDs or other tracking technologies, which could diminish our platform's effectiveness; any inability to compete in our intensely competitive market; any significant fluctuations caused by our high customer concentration; our limited operating history, which could result in our past results not being indicative of future operating performance; any violation of legal and regulatory requirements or any misconduct by our employees, subcontractors, agents or business partners; any strain on our resources, diversion of our management's attention or impact on our ability to attract and retain qualified board members as a result of being a public company; our dependence, as a holding company, on receiving distributions from Direct Digital Holdings, LLC to pay our taxes, expenses and dividends; the satisfaction of the conditions to the Offer, including the minimum tender condition; and other factors and assumptions discussed in the "Risk Factors," "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations" and other sections of our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that we make from time to time. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should any of these assumptions prove to be incorrect, our actual operating and financial performance may vary in material respects from the performance projected in these forward-looking statements. Further, any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement contained in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which it is made or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances, and we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Contacts:

Investors:
Brett Milotte, ICR
Brett.Milotte@icrinc.com

SOURCE Direct Digital Holdings