As we first reported in November, digital marketing software firm Turn has reeled in a new Series E investment.
The $80 million raise was distributed among eight venture capital firms and brings Turn’s total funding to about $138 million to date. (For comparison, direct competitor MediaMath has raised a mere $24.4 million, according to CrunchBase).
We hear the new round — likely Turn’s final cash re-up before an expected IPO this year — values the company in the $650 to $700 million range.
As we noted previously, that valuation should please Turn’s earlier investors. In its most recent investment, in 2011, the company was valued at about $150 million.
Turn’s gross media revenues (including media costs passed on to publishers) were $230 million in 2012 and around $350 million in 2013, according to sources, and this year’s are projected to be around $500 million. However Turn’s margins are humble at around 25%, significantly lower than publicly traded ad network companies like Rocket Fuel (mid-50%) and Criteo (mid-30%).
Previous investors Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, Shasta Ventures and Focus Ventures resubscribed for the current round. They were joined by newbies ClearBridge Investments, Firsthand Technology Value Fund, Northport Investments and Pine River Capital Management.
Turn says its platform now processes around 1.3 million bids per second against display, video, mobile, and social media impressions. This places significant demand on its infrastructure, and the company responded in 2013 with an 8x increase in capacity.
The company has gone international in a big way, with 20 offices and big hires from the ranks of enterprise software companies, such as that of former Lyris CEO Wolfgang Maasberg to run global sales last June.
