Safeguard Scientifics, an investor in demand-side platform MediaMath, provided a little bit more insight on MediaMath financials as part of Safeguard’s latest regulatory filings.
Among the details, MediaMath grew revenues 150% from 2009 to 2010 and “Safeguard provided $9 million in follow-on funding, in part, to expand MediaMath global sales and marketing initiatives, and to fuel technology development. In total, Safeguard has deployed $15.7 million in MediaMath since July 2009 and has a 22% primary ownership position.” See the Safeguard Scientifics Q1 2011 release.
This compares to the Safeguard release for Q3 2010 where Safeguardwhere Safeguard said it had “deployed $6.7 million in MediaMath since July 2009 and has a 17% primary ownership position,” If you look at MediaMath’s SEC filing in March which announced a new round of investment of $9 million, it would appear that Safeguard was the sole investor in the latest round given the update in the Safeguard Q1 2011 release. Interesting to note that $9 million got Safeguard 5% more of the company in 2011, whereas Safeguard’s previous investment of $6.7 million got them 17% of MediaMath.
Doing the back-of-the-envelope math, $9 million for a 5% increase in Safeguard’s stake indicates a MediaMath valuation of $180 million during the latest investment round.
It feels like “the inside round” is serving a few beneficial purposes in the ad tech start-up world at the least: insiders get to increase their stake and not risk dilution in a follow-on round; investors invest in something they know; and startups get to stay with existing investors who they know and trust.
By John Ebbert
