ContextWeb, makers of the contextual online ad exchange, ADSDAQ, announced today a Series D round of financing.
Their fourth round was led by an investment from Investor Growth Capital and additional funding came from all current investors: DFJ (Draper, Fisher and Jurvetson), DFJ Gotham Ventures, Updata Partners, DFJ New England, plus Gold Hill Capital.
With acquisitions of Right Media by Yahoo!, DoubleClick by Google and AdECN by Microsoft the burgeoning ad exchange space continues to attract buckets of money for those with their toes in the exchange waters.
Considering that exchanges are only in the early stages of popularity among direct response and brand advertisers, many are betting a pretty penny that the next home run will be hit by traders of advertising on an online exchange – and the exchange’s investors.
Huge successes such as Google’s AdWords/AdSense in recent years beg the question for the saavy venture capitalist: why not throw a few million at exchanges?
