PRESS RELEASE
SEATTLE (February 1, 2010) BlueKai, the online industry’s largest intent-focused, auction-based data exchange, today announced it has closed a C round of financing led by GGV Capital (formerly Granite Global Ventures). The round includes investments from existing investors Redpoint Ventures and Battery Ventures. The company had previously raised a total of $13.7 million in two rounds of funding from Redpoint and Battery. As part of the current funding round, BlueKai added Jeff Richards, Partner at GGV Capital,
to its Board of Directors.
BlueKai has built the world’s largest exchange of actionable advertising data on-demand for marketers, ad networks or publishers to boost the quality and scale of advertising initiatives. Data buyers include the top 10 US online ad networks, top Internet portals, and agencies and marketers. The world’s largest commerce publishers partner with BlueKai to monetize their audience data assets and recognize new revenue streams.
“BlueKai is the data brand of choice for most networks, portals, and demand side platforms and increasingly is required by most agencies to assure they are getting the highest quality audience possible,” says Omar Tawakol, CEO of BlueKai. “This round will be used to scale our business by continuing to innovate how data is bought and sold while at the same time driving transparency for consumers. In particular, BlueKai is rapidly deploying new APIs and real time systems that allow networks, demand side platforms and agency trading desks to build the BlueKai marketplace into their own offerings. The result is a vibrant and growing partner ecosystem.”
“New Internet advertising models and technologies are launched every day, but few have gotten the traction and marketplace acceptance of BlueKai since its launch just 18 months ago,” says Jeff Richards, Partner at GGV Capital. “We’ve been incredibly impressed with what the BlueKai team has accomplished in a short period of time, building the leading aggregation platform for online intent data and the only auction marketplace for this data.”
Redpoint Ventures (www.redpoint.com) is a leading high-tech venture capital firm with over $2 billion under management was formed in 1999 with partners from Brentwood Venture Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, two firms that had been successfully investing in technology since the early days of venture capital. It offers a deep bench of experienced partners with success in building companies throughout the technology industry from early investments in industry pioneers like TiVo, NetFlix, Ask Jeeves, Foundry Networks and Juniper Networks to exciting new companies such as MySpace, Calix, MobiTV, BigBand Networks, Fortinet, Right Media, Gaia Online, Efficient Frontier and HomeAway.
Battery Ventures (www.battery.com) has been investing in technology and innovation worldwide for 25 years. The firm partners with entrepreneurs and management teams across technology sectors, geographies and stages of a company’s life, from seed, start-up and expansion stage financing to growth equity and buyouts. Battery has supported many breakthrough companies around the world, including: Airespace (acquired by Cisco), Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), BladeLogic (acquired by BMC Software), Netezza (NYSE Arca: NZ), Omniture (NASDAQ: OMTR), and ProfitLogic (acquired by Oracle). Its current digital media portfolio includes such emerging firms as: Angie’s List, Bazaarvoice, Exact Target, FreeWheel Media, Lotame and TrialPay. From offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel, Battery currently manages more than $3B in committed capital.
GGV Capital (www.ggvc.com) GGV Capital, formerly Granite Global Ventures, is an expansion stage venture capital firm focused on the United States and Asia. GGV Capital manages over $1B from its offices in Silicon Valley (Menlo Park), Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore. The firm invests across a range of sectors in information technology, services and healthcare, as well as the consumer growth sector in China. Representative investments include Alibaba (HKSE: 1688.HK), AAC Acoustic (HKSE: 2018.HK), AthenaHealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), HiSoft, QuinStreet, SuccessFactors (NASDAQ: SFSF), Tudou and XenoPort (NASDAQ: XNPT).
BlueKai (http://www.bluekai.com) created the world’s largest and highest quality online intent data exchange to better connect advertisers with their target consumers online. BlueKai aggregates valuable shopping and research activities across the Internet, offering non-personally identifiable actionable data to marketers, ad networks, and publishers on over 200 million retail, travel, auto, education and financial product shoppers online. Additionally through strategic partnerships with top-tier data providers – who earn revenue in a privacy friendly way – the BlueKai Exchange gives marketers access to over 10,000+ combinations of intent, demographic, geographic, lifestyle, B2B data and additional segments. The privately-held company is based in Bellevue, WA and is a recipient of the AlwaysOn 2009 OnMedia 100 award as a Technology Innovator in Advertising, and the OnMedia 100 Top Private Companies.
George H. Simpson Communications
203.521.0352
george@georgesimpson.com
www.georgesimpson.com
