Traffic and content optimization company Perfect Market announced that it has raised an additional $9 million in funding led by Comcast Interactive Capital. CEO Julie Schoenfeld said in the release, “The substantial support we’ve received from investors to date affirms Perfect Market’s mission as we satisfy a gap in finding new monetization opportunities for leading web properties in the ever-expanding online advertising marketplace.” Read more.
Ms. Schoenfeld discussed the new funds and next steps for the company.
AdExchanger.com: Can you provide some details on what you’ll do with the $9 million in additional funding? How much funding has Perfect Market taken to-date?
JM: Perfect Market has raised just over $28M. We plan to use the funds to build out our sales and implementation capability to increase our growth. We are also expanding our product offering to provide enhanced capability.
How important are your patents to the overall valuation of the company? How do you see this evolving?
It is helpful to have a deep technology base when implementing any internet solution. It creates a barrier to entry and is looked upon favorably by investors. We are committed to increasing our unique technology portfolio and have already 9 patents granted and several more pending.
Some have commented that the quality of search results in Google, for example, has degraded. Has Perfect Market seen this? How is it affecting your company’s product strategy, if so?
Google is always working to improve the quality of search results. Perfect Market is working with the highest quality content through our publisher partners. Our goals are aligned with Google and it is our desire to ensure that when a user enters a query into a search engine, that that search engine can access our system’s high quality content. This helps the searcher which also helps our business model.
Are content generation companies like Demand Media a threat to Perfect Market and its clients?
On the one hand, publishing is a very competitive area and Demand Media is one new publisher. On the other hand we believe users recognize the quality and value of branded content and we focus on that.
As audience buying (via cookies) gains momentum on the buy side, how do Perfect Market and its sell-side clients fit?
We think audience is a great area of innovation for advertising. Nonetheless we have found there is even more room for publishers to benefit from contextual advertising especially for intent driven visitors to their sites.
By John Ebbert
