# Matthew Goldhill

> Matthew Goldhill is the founder and CEO of Picnic, a London-born adtech company that pioneered 'social display' advertising - Stories, Posts and Carousels dropped mid-article on Google AMP pages, a format that didn't exist before he built it. He left AppNexus at 25 to start the company, bootstrapped it for years, delivered 600+ campaigns for brands like EE, L'Oreal and Amazon, then raised £1m in 2023 and moved to New York to crack the US market. He builds user-first, low-carbon ad products and is unusually candid about the near-disasters along the way.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at Picnic
- **Organizations:** Picnic (Picnic Media Limited), AppNexus, Sharethrough, Mobile5Media
- **Nationality:** British
- **Known for:** Created the social display ad category - social-inspired formats served mid-article on Google AMP pages, a niche that didn't exist in 2016., Delivered 600+ campaigns for brands including EE, L'Oreal and Amazon., Bootstrapped Picnic for years before raising external capital.

## Career timeline

- **early career** — First job out of university at mobile marketing startup Mobile5, covering creative, technology and commercial roles.
- **pre-2016** — Leadership roles at Sharethrough and AppNexus (later Xandr).
- **2016** — Founded Picnic at age 25 alongside a co-founder with deep adtech knowledge.
- **2017** — Picnic begins delivering premium, user-first mobile ad formats.
- **circa 2018** — Pivots to core product: social-style ads (Stories, Posts, Carousels) served mid-article on Google AMP pages, growing to eight employees.
- **2023-09** — Closed £1m funding round led by FirstPartyCapital; relocated to New York to lead US expansion and won the first US customer.
- **2025** — Featured on the FPC Podcast discussing adtech M&A, media quality and Picnic's fundraising journey.

## Achievements

- Created the social display ad category - social-inspired formats served mid-article on Google AMP pages, a niche that didn't exist in 2016.
- Delivered 600+ campaigns for brands including EE, L'Oreal and Amazon.
- Bootstrapped Picnic for years before raising external capital.
- Raised £1m in September 2023 led by FirstPartyCapital, with backers including Gurman Hundal (MiQ) and Brian O'Kelley (Scope3, AppNexus).
- Built a culture with an internal employee NPS of 85 and a Flexa flexibility certification of 89%.
- Established a New York office and landed Picnic's first US customer.

## Latest updates

- **2023-09** — Closed a £1m round led by FirstPartyCapital and relocated to New York to drive US expansion.
- **2025-05** — Appeared on the FPC Podcast discussing adtech M&A, media quality and Picnic's fundraising journey.

## Links

- Website: https://picnic.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewgoldhill/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/matthew-goldhill
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-10