Wessel Vleut @WesselV: "Why I'm Buying Zeta Global..."

Netherlands

Why I'm Buying Zeta Global (And Why Wall Street Still Sees It Wrong) Every once in a while, the market puts a label on a company and refuses to update it. Zeta Global is, in my view, one of those cases - and that's exactly where the opportunity sits. The simple version of what $ZETA.US (Zeta Global Holdings Corp) does Companies want to know two things: what's happening inside their business (inventory, operations, supply chains) and what's happening with their customers (what people want, click on, and buy). $ZETA.US owns the customer half. Through its own digital properties, it collects signals from over 500 million people who have opted in - and turns that into detailed profiles companies use to market smarter. This isn't rented data or third-party cookies. Zeta owns the pipes, built over 20 years. In a world where privacy rules keep tightening, owned and consented data is becoming the scarce asset. What changed in 2026? In roughly six months, three big names effectively validated Zeta's position: $PLTR (Palantir Technologies Inc.) signed a 7-year partnership in June. Zeta is rebuilding its Data Cloud on top of Palantir's Foundry. Palantir owns the operations half of the data puzzle; Zeta owns the customer half. Together they can offer companies something neither could alone - and here's the kicker: that combined product only works if you're a customer of both. Every Palantir client becomes a potential Zeta client, and vice versa. That's a built-in sales engine. OpenAI powers the voice of Athena, Zeta's AI agent, and partners with Zeta on advertising. Snowflake partnered with Zeta on a standard for sharing enterprise data - which means companies that don't want to use Palantir can still plug their operational data into Zeta. Smart hedge. The model leader, the infrastructure leader, and the data warehouse leader all chose the same mid-cap company. That's not a coincidence. That's a signal. The numbers behind the story Stories are nice; numbers pay. $ZETA.US revenue grew from 458M USD in 2021 to 1.3B in 2025, with 1.78B guided for 2026. Free cash flow grew 78% last year. Net revenue retention hit a record 120% - meaning existing customers spend 20% more each year, without counting new customers. And the company has now beaten and raised guidance 19 quarters in a row. Why I think it's a good buy now Let's be honest about the environment first: the software sector has taken a beating. Multiples have compressed across the board, and anything labeled "SaaS" or "martech" has been sold off - often regardless of how the underlying business is actually doing. Zeta got dragged down with the sector. But here's the thing: while the stock faced those headwinds, the business didn't blink. Revenue kept compounding, free cash flow grew 78%, retention hit a record. The sector sell-off punished Zeta's price, not its performance - and that disconnect is precisely what creates the entry point. Because underneath it, my core thesis is this: Zeta is still priced as a marketing-software company, while it's quietly becoming an AI infrastructure company. Compare it to the cohort it actually belongs to - Palantir, Datadog, Snowflake, MongoDB, CrowdStrike. Zeta's growth and retention sit right in that group, and its free cash flow yield is more than double the cohort average. Yet it trades at roughly 3x revenue while the others trade at 7–31x. Same profile, fraction of the price. If the market ever re-rates Zeta into the right category, that gap is the upside. #The honest risks No bull case is complete without the other side. The sector headwinds are real and could last longer than anyone expects - cheap can always get cheaper. Zeta is a small player fighting giants like Salesforce. The Palantir partnership is new - execution could disappoint. The stock is volatile, and a re-rating can take years or simply never come. I size my position accordingly: 4.6% is meaningful, not reckless. #Credit where it's due The deeper mechanics of the Palantir partnership were laid out brilliantly by Wealthmatica on Substack. If you want the full, detailed analysis (ontologies, data layers, the works), read the original piece here: [Why the Palantir x Zeta Global Partnership Matters](wealthmatica.substack.com/p/why-the-palantir-x-zeta-global-partnership). You can follow exactly how this position plays out in my portfolio every month, wins and losses *Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. I hold a position in Zeta Global (4.6% of my portfolio) What price will $ZETA.US reach in 2026?

Not investment advice. The author may have financial interests in the mentioned instruments.

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