Video specialist TubeMogul has raised $10 million to take programmatic video buying into Asia and today opened a Beijing office. Singtel led the funding round through its Innov8 VC unit.
“TubeMogul fits perfectly into our strategy of investing in top advertising companies that are poised for rapid growth in Asia,” says Punit Chiniwalla, Director, Singtel Innov8. “We are impressed by the product and team on the ground and look forward to working more closely with the company.”
The company plans to use the capital to ramp up information technology infrastructure and hires in a region where it is already seeing traction. In the past year, TubeMogul’s offices in Singapore and Sydney has grown from having a handful of sales executives to full teams spanning account management, marketing, and operations and planning. Since opening three months ago, the Japan office has signed up leading advertisers, including from Digital Advertising Consortium and Omnibus.
Earlier this month global boss Brett Wilson said the company planned to double its Apac headcount this year and that the firm would launch more tools for measurement and optimisation over the next six months. He told AdNews these would likely take an "open source" approach so that industry can help hone the tools required.
"Our vision has always been: lets make digital branding as simple, effective and as accountable as Google made direct response with AdWords.”
He said TubeMogul was also "developing our own models that match to Nielsen and ComScore panels to help advertisers better target the audiences that they intend to target."
Right now, he said, publishers were struggling with some of the new validation technologies and were having to deliver "thirty to forty percent more impressions just to deliver what they said they had been delivering".
"We don't want a world where publishers can't sell any of their impressions because they are not in target. So we need to launch these tools and keep communication high."
The firm begins that mission in China today, with Sven Rossbach formerly of Cadreon (Interpublic Group’s trading desk) tasked with delivering growth.
In the funding round, Cross Creek Capital, a venture fund associated with Wasatch Advisors, also participated, along with existing investors Digital Advertising Consortium, Foundation Capital and Trinity Ventures.
Karey Barker, CFA, Managing Director at Cross Creek Capital said the firm backed "high-growth, late-stage companies with the potential to become public companies and TubeMogul fits that bill".
She expected high growth to contine as people watch more online video.
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