Demand-side platform The Trade Desk has received $20 million in Series B funding led by Hermes Growth Partners.
The Ventura, Calif.-based company told AdExchanger the move was a natural response to growth in demand for programmatic platforms globally.
“We made a strategic decision that we wanted to take in more capital,” CEO Jeff Green said, “partly because of the fact that we’ve grown so fast that we knew we could add more capital without much cost to the company and that would make it easier for us to continue to grow internationally without any restraints.”
The Trade Desk plans to use the investment primarily for hiring.
“It’s all about people,” Green said. “That means having engineers around the world, account managers, salespeople, all of that … and growing as fast as we possibly can without disrupting our culture and the level of service that has made it so we’ve grown as fast as any player on the demand side of RTB.”
The vast majority of The Trade Desk’s customers are agencies. “We always say, … ‘We power the sophisticated buyers,’” Green said. “Most of those do it professionally and do it full-time, so those are the agencies. … They’re the people who focus on providing the service for marketers.”
In addition to its offices in Ventura, New York and London, The Trade Desk has added locations in Singapore, Sydney and Hamburg, Germany. While the company sees most of its business come from North America, Green said its growth will mirror global demand for advertising technology. “Almost everywhere [outside the United States] is growing more rapidly, just because it’s earlier stage.”
The partnership with Hermes Growth Partners came about through an hour-long meeting between Green and the venture capital firm’s co-founder, Juan Villalonga, who had been recommended by The Trade Desk’s board of directors.
The Trade Desk’s seed and Series A investor, IA Ventures, joined Hermes Growth Partners in this round of funding. “To see a small fund to do a growth round is a commentary on how much our investors believe in this business,” Green said.
