Demand-side platform Turn on Thursday revealed a $15 million round of funding, bringing its total raised since 2005 to $152.5 million. There was no lead in this latest round as all of Turn’s current investors participated.
The new round is Turn’s first in CEO Bruce Falck’s tenure, and it’s notably more modest than the $80 million blockbuster it netted back in January 2014. That makes sense, given these new funds are meant less for product development and more to support the day-to-day work operating Turn’s growing scale. According to a release, the company saw 50% growth in number of customers using its demand-side platform and DMP, and its agency and brand-direct business grew 44% YoY.
“As you do more and more revenue, you require more working capital to deal with accounts receivable,” Falck said. “That’s just business as usual. I think of this as putting us in a position of strength, especially relative to our competitors, and letting us focus on execution and scale.”
He added that he does not anticipate Turn seeking further investor funds – at least not for a couple of years. “We plan to run the company profitably, so we think this will be it for a while,” Falck said. “We certainly don’t want to need to raise money in what is likely to be a challenging environment.”
In terms of down-the-road products, Falck told AdExchanger in a recent interview he intends to focus on video in the first half of 2016 and native during the second half. Turn is also working to become a mostly mobile platform and is working to enhance its data management platform, with the aim of making it a more robust standalone offering.
Thursday’s $15 million injection is the first publicly disclosed funding series Turn has raised since its big 2014 score. Back then, Turn was expected to IPO and was valued at $650 million to $700 million. Falck, incidentally, said this round did not require any valuation of the company and declined to comment further.
Besides the latest round of funding, Turn also unveiled two hires: Google alum Allison Young will be Turn’s head of North American sales, and former Yahoo platform operations exec Mike Kiernan will be senior director of business operations.
