After raising roughly $200 billion last year, private equity firms have been keeping investment bankers up late at night – as the bankers gleefully think of ways to spend all that money.

And they’re not the only ones, ADWeek is speculating that buyout firms have their eye on the splintered digital marketing space, which may be ripe for a roll-up. With industry lacking a one-stop-shop that can offer big advertisers a display ad network, search, e-mail, affiliate marketing, Web analytics and several other specialties.

Should a buyout shop go that route, it may very well start providing exit opportunities to venture capital firms that have portfolio companies in the space.

Likely candidates include Right Media Inc., recipient of $45 million from Redpoint Ventures and Yahoo! Inc. to develop its software that lets advertisers bid for placement on so-called non-premium inventory from a publishing firm; or SeeSaw Networks, recipient of $10 million for technology designed to make it easy to plan, buy and measure advertising on a network of digital venues would both be potential targets. —George White

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