Online video advertising network YuMe--which saw its revenues grow six-fold last year--says it's closed a $25 million round of funding that will allow it to expand its video ad management platform, ACE, and help it to further develop video ad delivery across high quality in-stream content.
This round of funding was led by new investor Menlo Ventures; several of its existing investors, Accel Partners, BV Capital, DAG Ventures and Khosla Ventures also participated in the round.
According to comScore, YuMe represents 1.2 billion in-player video streams per month, and has a potential reach of 76 million unique viewers per month. YuMe's 500-plus publishers include MSN, MSNBC Digital Network, IDG Entertainment and Glam Media on multiple platforms, including PC, mobile and IPTV. The six-year-old company said it reached profitability and served an average of 30 million in-stream video ads per day in December 2009.
"Video is the largest advertising category on the planet and the shift from broadcast to Internet went into high gear in 2009," said Shawn Carolan, Managing Director for Menlo Ventures, who has joined YuMe's board. "As we evaluated all the video ad solutions on the market, we became convinced that YuMe has built the best technology in the industry in its ACE ad management platform, with its ability to optimize video advertising across all viewing environments, including IPTV, mobile and Web. The company already has demonstrated it is the market leader going into 2010 and this funding will help facilitate new technology offerings and additional expansion."
Among other high points, YuMe in 2009:
- Introduced new interactive in-stream video ad formats that give advertisers more creative choices than standard pre-rolls;
- Became the first advertising technology to offer dynamic ad insertion into live video; and,
- Partnered with AutoTrader.com Access to let automotive marketers reach consumers currently shopping for a new car.
"We had a tremendous year last year and have set big goals for 2010," said Michael Mathieu, YuMe CEO.
For more:
- see this release
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