Ad verification company, AdSafe Media, announced a $7.5 million Series B round of financing led by Atlas Venture and includes existing investors Founder Collective among others. The funds will be used in part to roll out products Network Monitor 2.0 and Content Rating API. Read more in the release.
Co-Founder and CRO Kent Wakeford discussed the capital raise and plans for AdSafe Media.
What made Atlas Venture a good fit as a lead investor in your series B round?
Atlas has a great pedigree in the ad-tech space, having led investments in other key display advertising companies such as DataXu. Moreover, Fred Destin, the lead partner on the transaction, has deep experience it the ad-tech and consumer facing technology sectors and will be a tremendous addition to the AdSafe team.
You’ve listed your Network Monitor update and Content Network API as key upcoming milestones that will be funded by this new round. Any other plans?
In addition to our key product roll-outs, international expansion to the UK and Western Europe is a key near-term strategic objective. We have maintained an operational and technological presence in the UK since our commercial launch and we are now looking to step up our sales and marketing efforts abroad to more aggressively support our global clients.
At some point in the future, can you see AdSafe Media delivering agnostic data APIs to whomever wants to use your targeting parameters rather than productized for publishers, networks, agencies, etc.? If so, at that point, how will you differentiate?
AdSafe’s governing mission is to become the Digital Ratings Agency of the Web and an agnostic, independent source of content information for the entire ecosystem. The key to our rating system is that it is a standardized, common source of information that can be utilized simultaneously by all sides of the industry. What the industry is currently lacking are the metrics that facilitate common dialogue between all players. Our current productitization strategy is driven more by the dynamics and needs of the industry players. In the long term we see our business relying more on our ability to deliver these metrics in raw data form.
Do you anticipate you’ll need another round of funding before you reach profitability?
No. We anticipate that this round of funding will sustain us through profitability, ideally within the next year.
By John Ebbert
