Location analytics startup Placed announced today $10 million in a Series B funding round led by Two Sigma Ventures, bringing its total to $13.4 million.
Seattle-based Placed’s founder and CEO, David Shim, said the investment will go toward hiring data scientists and engineers over the next year to enhance Placed Attribution, a feature launched last August designed to draw connections between mobile advertising and brick-and-mortar foot traffic.
Among changes to Placed Attribution that can be expected soon, Shim said the company is working on deploying a web interface where clients can track campaign data. Currently, data is delivered in a post-campaign report.
Placed Attribution works by collecting location data from mobile apps and matching where users go with the ads they’ve been exposed to on screen. A Placed client, such as a retailer, can use this data to track the effectiveness of their display ads in bringing customers in the door.
Users must opt in to tracking with Placed Attribution, and there remains some guesswork around which store visits actually lead to conversions and how much a given sale is influenced by an ad. Still, Shim said he believes location data is far more valuable than click-through rates to marketers looking to drive consumers to a store with their campaigns.
Shim said the success of Placed Attribution is a driving force behind taking on funding now.
“We’re seeing great traction in market with (our) partnerships,” Shim said. “We’re seeing the market adopt Placed Attribution as the currency for mobile (in-store) attribution. We believe this is a great opportunity to build upon that, accelerate and own the space by the end of the year.”
Shim said Placed Attribution is becoming more effective by collecting more data from new partners including Pandora, The Weather Channel and Rocket Fuel.
Also last year, the company launched Placed Affiliate, through which mobile developers can monetize their apps by providing location data to Placed.
The company said that through its major partnerships and Placed Affiliate it now measures 175 million locations of more than 175,000 consumers daily.
Placed’s growing list of big-name retail and publishing clients are a motivating factor in the company’s opening of a New York office within two months, Shim said. Placed aims to hire five to 10 new employees in New York to add to its more than 20 employees in Seattle.
Two Sigma Ventures “really focused on data, and how to make it actionable,” Shim said of this round’s leading investor. “That really relates what we’re doing with Placed where we’re taking location data, we’re converting that into places, and then making that actionable with things like Placed Attribution.”
Madrona Venture Group was the leading investor on Placed’s 2012 Series A funding of $3.4 million, and also participated in this round.
