Group

In 1996, the 3 Suisses corporate foundation awarded Cyril Zimmermann and Bruno Laforestrie a grant to finance their business venture. The two partners then developed and separated their activities in 1998 with HiBox, a press publisher and radio operator headed by Bruno Laforestrie, and HiMedia, headed by Cyril Zimmermann, whose ambition is to develop content publishers thanks to online advertising, an embryonic but very promising market.

Quickly, HiMedia gained a recognition in the Internet thanks to the reputation of its first partners, including the sites of the weekly Marianne or jeuxvideo.com which it will acquire a few years later. His success allows him to enter the stock market in Paris in June 2000.

While the explosion of the Internet bubble collapsed of numerous start-ups, HiMedia adapts its structure and resists. In the middle of 2000s, once the growth of return, HiMedia succeeds in becoming established in Germany, in Spain, in Italy, in Sweden, in Portugal, in Belgium, in the Netherlands and in Brazil.

Then, Cyril Zimmermann diversifies the activity of the group towards an expanding business: the electronic payment. In 2006, HiMedia acquires the platform of micropayment Allopass. Become the specialist of the monetization of the digital contents by the advertising or by the transactions, HiMedia gains market shares and the trust of the biggest French and international publishers.

From 2014, learning from the evolution of the digital media, HiMedia rationalizes its activities by separating its branches publishing sites and electronic payment valued for more than 150 million euros. At the same time, the company understands that Internet users are less likely to support Internet advertising because of its intrusive nature.

Himedia decides to put the user experience at the heart of digital marketing by developing advertising products that meet three criteria: advertisements must be native (integrated to websites), they must bring an immediate perceptible advantage that the internet user can benefit from proximity to home (through geo-localized ads associated with promotions or discount coupons) and they must be entertaining.

HiMedia is now renamed AdUX and is based on the three most promising segments of digital advertising : native advertising with its Quantum subsidiary, geolocalized advertising with its subsidiary AdMoove and brand content with AdPulse. This positioning allows AdUX to play a central role in the online advertising market, as demonstrated by its partnerships with publishers such as MSN, We Transfer, Dailymotion, Via Michelin, Se Loger, Webedia and Démotivateur.