The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Funding Programmatic

The end of the ad tech financing drought?

Author

By Ronan Shields, Digital Editor

July 31, 2015 | 3 min read

Anti-ad fraud firm scores $27m cash injection casting doubt on earlier predictions

Anti-ad fraud firm Integral Ad Science has today (31 July) announced $27m in funding, marking the end of a period that many industry observers had dubbed as a ‘funding drought’ for ad tech companies.

Integral’s latest round of funding was led by Sapphire Ventures, Cross Creek Advisors as well as existing investors August Capital, Pelion Venture Partners and Atlas Venture, and adds to a $40m debt facility from Silicon Valley bank, making its total available funds $67m.

The funds will be used to further its international presence (Integral anticipates doubling its headcount by the end of 2015), plus roll out the amount of services it has to offer, which currently includes ad fraud detection tools, plus brand safety and ad viewability solutions.

The company claims it has been profitable since 2012, with Adam Millsom, director of Silicon Valley Bank in New York, describing the company as a “pioneer in its field”.

He added: “Integral Ad Science has demonstrated strong financials and exceptional growth, with a bright future ahead. Our primary objective is to help our clients move their bold ideas forward fast with the right financing, connections and global services.”

Leading financial market observers have recently been promoting the notion of an ‘ad tech drought’, with several high-profile financiers attesting to how many ad tech vendors are ‘struggling to get meetings’ with venture capital, and private equity firms.

Terrence Kawaja, CEO of financiers Luma Partners, speculated this struggle to achieve interest from financiers may have influenced the glut of M&A activity in the sector (the outfit notes there were 82 in total throughout 2014), with similar deals in recent months including: Rubicon Project’s purchase of Chango, which quickly followed its purchase of iSocket and ShinyAds; AppNexus’ purchase of Yieldex; and Sizmek’s purchase of StrikeAd.

These deals proceeded the ongoing speculation of Google in the market to purchase mobile ad network InMobi, plus AoL circling Millennial Media, with many speculating that such moves would also be firesales.

However, in recent weeks several high-profile funding rounds for ad tech outfits have taken place, with noteworthy instances including Admeld co-founder Ben Barokas recently raising $10m for his anti-ad blocking outfit Sourcepoint. Similarly Fuisz Media raised the exact same amount this week to fuel its ambitions to improve interactive online video advertising. So perhaps predictions of the downfall of the ad tech providers was somewhat premature.

Funding Programmatic

More from Funding

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +