MNTN's chief creative officer is Ryan Reynolds, the actor behind Deadpool. He joined when MNTN bought Maximum Effort, his marketing studio. The Austin company sells software that puts ads on streaming TV and tracks whether viewers then visit a site or buy something. TV had been a medium for giant brands with giant budgets. MNTN pitched it to smaller companies as a channel they could measure, like search ads. It went public in May 2025.

SteelHouse Changes the Channel

Mark Douglas founded the company in 2009 as Steel House, Inc. It began by helping marketers aim display ads at households across desktops and phones. In 2018 the team saw a shift coming in connected TV, the streaming apps on smart TVs and devices. They began building tools to buy those ads and link them to sales. The company took the name MNTN, said "mountain," and called its product Performance TV. It later added the QuickFrame creative marketplace along with Maximum Effort.

Sixteen Dollars, Then Twenty-One

MNTN priced 11.7 million shares at $16 on May 21, 2025, the top of its range, and raised $187.2 million. The stock opened on the New York Stock Exchange the next day at $21, about 31 percent higher, under the ticker MNTN. In the second quarter of 2026 revenue grew 21 percent from a year earlier. The company guided to $347 million to $357 million in revenue for 2026, and it still trades on the NYSE.

Cover: An Alpine Scene, Gustave Courbet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an alpine peak (MNTN, 'mountain').