Press Release
Safeguard Scientifics and QED Invest in Digital Media Trading Leader
New York, NY, August 5, 2009 ― MediaMath, the leading digital media-buying platform and services company, today announced that it has secured $12.5 million in venture capital and debt financing. The $10 million in venture financing was led by Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE), a holding company that builds value in growth-stage life sciences and technology companies, with participation from QED Investors, a fund created by Capital One co-founder Nigel Morris, and European Founders Fund. An additional $2.5 million in debt financing was secured from Silicon Valley Bank. MediaMath will use the proceeds to fund its continued expansion — with a focus on technology research and product development, executive and staff recruitment, tactical acquisitions, and geographic expansion.
“Partnering with MediaMath aligns with Safeguard’s core focus of investing in growth-stage, entrepreneurial technology companies whose competitive advantage in their market represents a sizeable opportunity,” says Erik Rasmussen, Vice President and Managing Director of the Technology Group at Safeguard Scientifics, who will join MediaMath’s Board of Directors. “MediaMath is the clear leader in web advertising management, with hundreds of campaigns and tens of millions of spend successfully delivered through the system. Their approach combines raw performance, research and precise targeting ― all of which are critical elements to successful marketing today.”
MediaMath was founded in 2007 and has grown into an industry leader. The company serves billions of highly-targeted ads per month on behalf of over twenty top-tier agencies, including all of the major agency holding companies.
The MediaMath buying platform provides advertising agencies with the technology and back office services to trade effectively across leading display advertising sources. It includes a common interface and workflow, data management layer that integrates marketer and third-party data, PhD-designed algorithms and bid optimization, and deep relationships with over a dozen major sources of quality supply, including Yahoo! RightMedia, Google’s DoubleClick Advertising Exchange, Microsoft AdECN, Facebook and others.
“We invented the first demand-side media trading platform to help agencies deliver increased client performance and insights at reduced costs, and have spent the past two years scaling the most sophisticated software and services offering in the industry,” says Joe Zawadzki, MediaMath CEO. “The combination of Safeguard’s technology expertise and resources as a publicly-traded firm, QED’s background in building organizations with quantitative analytics at their core, and of course the capital itself are going to help us accelerate our ability to meet top-tier agencies’ specialized needs.”
ABOUT SAFEGUARD SCIENTIFICS
Founded in 1953 and based in Wayne, PA, Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) provides growth capital for entrepreneurial and innovative life sciences and technology companies. Safeguard targets life sciences companies in Molecular and Point-of-Care Diagnostics, Medical Devices, Regenerative Medicine and Specialty Pharmaceuticals, and technology companies in Internet / New Media, Financial Services IT and Healthcare IT with capital requirements of up to $25 million. Safeguard participates in expansion financings, corporate spin-outs, management buyouts, recapitalizations, industry consolidations and early-stage financings. www.safeguard.com
ABOUT MEDIAMATH
MediaMath’s automated buying platform provides advertising agencies with access to tens of billions of impressions daily, and a simple workflow that manages the powerful analytics and rich data necessary to make best use of them. Headquartered in New York, the company was founded in 2007 by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs, marketers, technologists, and quants. For more information, visit www.mediamath.com.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Kristy DelMuto
Gregory FCA
610-642-8253
c: 484-686-4775
Kristy@GregoryFCA.com
