Investment

Twitter tried to avoid last quarter’s narrative, centered around flagging audience growth, in its Q1 call Tuesday; instead, the company emphasized a 28% quarterly increase in ad engagements (specifically retweets and favorites), driven by higher-quality ads and the use of rich media. Such was the overall theme: engagement over timeline views and audience growth. Yet, the fact remains the latter […]

Retargeting platform AdRoll announced a $70 million funding round, led by Foundation Capital. The San Francisco-based company, which had previously raised $19 million, has expanded rapidly since launching in 2007 and become a leader in the retargeting space. AdRoll plans to use the investment to beef up its existing platform for mobile, and expand hiring at […]

Google posted a solid quarter, as total revenues for Q1 2014 jumped to $15.42 billion, a 19% increase compared to this time last year. During its earnings call, Google emphasized its ambitions to extend its value as a brand builder and to close the price gap between mobile and desktop display advertising. Google also stated […]

Yahoo reported gross revenue of $1.13 billion and $1.07 billion in ex-TAC revenue for Q1 2014. GAAP revenue was down 1% from the same period last year, but ex-traffic acquisition revenue was up 1%. GAAP display revenue was $453 million for Q1 2014, flat compared to the same period last year. Yahoo increased the number […]

Supply-side platform (SSP) AdsNative received Thursday a $2 million injection of funding led by Interwest Partners, raising about $750K in convertible debt prior to this series. The company also released a mechanism called Mediation/SSP, designed to maximize publisher fill rates for in-stream native ads. AdsNative will devote the majority of the funds to getting more publishers […]

Are programmatic media companies about to hit the wall? Ken Sena, managing director and Internet analyst at investment banking analyst firm Evercore Partners, is wary. Despite the exuberant expectations around companies like Criteo and Rocket Fuel, Sena sees a possible multifront threat on the horizon. In an Evercore report called “Questioning Competitive Barriers In Programmatic,” […]

Lotame, known for its data management platform (DMP), has received a $15 million injection in Series D funding, led by Sozo Ventures and TrueBridge Capital Partners. This brings Lotame’s total funds raised to $44 million. These new funds, said CEO Andy Monfried, will be used to enhance the platform’s technology and expand globally, particularly in […]

Salesforce.com reported 37% revenue growth in Q4, to $1.15 billion, driven in part by the $2.5 billion July 2013 acquisition of ExactTarget. Its full year revenue was $4.07 billion, up 33% year-over-year. ExactTarget is the lynchpin of ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, which competes with analogous stacks fielded by Adobe and Oracle. Specifically, ExactTarget contributed $96 million in […]

Media-buying platform Rocket Fuel’s growth continued to shoot up in the fourth quarter, driven by – according to CEO George John during the quarterly call – a high customer-retention rate, increased sales productivity and reputation. The company reported gross revenue of $85.6 million in Q4 2013, a 113% increase from the same period last year. […]

Sizmek, the company formerly known as Digital Generation (DG), reported Tuesday a full-year revenue increase of 15%, to $161.1 million compared to $140.7 million in 2012, capped off by Q4 revenue of $47.6 million, a 16% compared to the same period last year. (Read the release.) These figures reflect only Sizmek’s online business, and not […]