« Rumor Mill: Google Sniffing The Ukraine's Bigmir)net | Main | Stockholm's Keybroker Raises €5M »
February 26, 2008
EUR 54M For Online Ad Net Adconion
EUR 54M for Adconion (fka EuroClick) is a watershed moment for European venture capital. The investment was led by Index Ventures, who were joined by existing investor Wellington Partners.The company boasts that the financing is the largest online media venture investment in European history and for once a funding announcement cannot be blamed for hyperbole.
In a world where there are half a dozen new ad networks launched before lunch, what sets Adconion apart to make investors so confident? The closest we can tell is a) they like management b) Adconion has rolled out globally, in contrast to other ad networks of their size which have felt uncomfortable leaving North America. Adconion would seem to be M&A bait for the likes of Advertising.com, Microsoft and others as at some point they turn their eyes outside the US. The management draw is CEO Tyler Moebius whose background included being co-founder of TrafficMarketplace (TMP) as a co-founder in early 2001. Before that he was a Series A investor and one of the first 10 employees at Avenue A.
Founded in 2004, Adconion plans to use a quarter of its new funding to expand its US operations, half to invest in new technology and the rest for acquisitions.
We have to say, we have never heard great assessments of Adconian by users. Payouts are ho-hum and there seems to be no special technology, however, they have managed to do what other ad networks have struggled with - hire ad sales-people to book IOs in Europe so that European sites have someone other than Google to turn to for their remnant inventory. For US sites, they get some reward from their European traffic. And as the dollar has plummeted vs. the Euro those meager payouts get more significant.
View - site
Posted on February 26, 2008 04:47 AM | Posted to Advertising | Permalink
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/6843
