PRESS RELEASE
Second Round of Capital Aimed at Expanding Product Portfolio and International Expansion
NEW YORK, NY – July 7, 2010 – AdSafe Media, the rating standard of online media, today announced the successful close of $7.25 Million in Series B funding, led by Atlas Venture with follow-on participation from existing investors Founder Collective, among others. This funding comes a little over a year after the company’s commercial launch in May 2009, indicative of the increased focus brands, agencies and the venture capital community have had on the display advertising space in recent months. AdSafe uses proprietary machine learning to rate the brand safety of content on commercial webpages, enabling advertisers to ensure the proper placement of their display advertising.
“Given the market’s aggressive adoption of our Content Rating Platform to date, we are excited to have the support of Atlas Venture to extend the use of our rating system to additional ecosystem players. Our rating system has been designed to enable standardization and collaboration across the online advertising industry and Atlas will be a valuable partner in accelerating our mission,” commented Helene Monat, CEO and co-founder of AdSafe.
While the company continues to focus on increasing the brand safety and transparency of online display advertising through standardized brand safety metrics, AdSafe has identified a number of near-term strategic growth initiatives. AdSafe will roll out its Network Monitor 2.0 this summer, an enhanced version of its current product in market which analyzes and reports on the brand safety of display advertising traffic for ad-networks, exchanges and publishers. AdSafe’s Content Rating API, slated for commercial launch in Q4 2010, will interface directly into real-time-bidding and demand-side platforms, providing clients with immediate information regarding the brand safety of every impression available for purchase.
“The online industry has the audience and the engagement, yet brand-sensitive ad budgets have not yet migrated in a similarly meaningful way. AdSafe has the recognition and the buy-in from major players and thought leaders in the advertising industry, both on the buy-side and the sell-side, and is the real time “trust metrics” platform that this industry needs to get these ad budgets flowing,” commented Fred Destin, Partner as Atlas Venture. Atlas Venture has also funded advertising technology start-up DataXu, a leader in the audience buying and ad-optimization industry.
The complexity of the digital marketing space including ad exchanges and DSPs is one that demands brand safety. Add real-time-bidding to the equation and things become further complicated. According to Brian Lesser, SVP General Manager at WPP’s Media Innovation Group, “advertisers and agencies are eager to engage more fully in the digital display space, but demand both brand safety and ad placement transparency. Brand safety solutions like AdSafe help alleviate many of these concerns that may have caused hesitation when buying display.”
About AdSafe Media
AdSafe Media is the rating standard of online media. AdSafe uses proprietary algorithmic modeling and human verification to rate the brand safety of content on commercially supported web pages via the AdSafe Content Rating System. AdSafe’s Brand Safety Firewall enables Brands, Agencies and Ad-networks to prevent advertising from appearing on publisher web pages that do not conform to brand guidelines. AdSafe’s Content Monitoring Platform enables Ad-Networks and Publishers to identify and segment problematic site content, increasing monetization of display inventory. AdSafe is headquartered in New York, NY with operations in Santa Barbara, CA and London, England. For more information visit www.AdSafeMedia.com.
