In a posting on their company website, OpenX says that Jon Miller the former CEO of AOL has joined them as Chairman. Miller brings with him a wealth of experience from working with advertisers and publishers. OpenX (formerly OpenAds) boasts a number of tier one investors including First Round Capital, Index Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners, O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures and Accel Partners.
Accel Partners have closed a $15.5million series B financing round for Openads, the Open Source Ad Server people. Existing investors Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures also participated. The company will use the funds to accelerate product development and expand its team to support its large publisher community, which is now using Openads to deliver billions of ads daily in over 100 countries around the world.
Openads lets publishers take control of their advertising, providing simple, powerful and independent tools to schedule, manage and track online campaigns. The software also supports a broad range of ad formats and advertiser types (including direct advertisers and ad networks such as Google AdSense, Yahoo! and Advertising.com). The new hosted version will make it even easier and faster for publishers to make more money from online advertising by eliminating the need to run the software on their own servers.
I read a story recently where a guy recalls walking down a London street and passing a casino. This was not a casino ‘US Style’ with entertainment, tuxedos, packed with high-rollers and pazzazz. Oh no, this was a typical London casino with scraggy carpets, a few games machines and a £1 max table. In the window was a cardboard sign saying ‘Free Soup and Bread Roll’ - a soup kitchen and casino all in one! Was this a generous offer or a synical ploy to keep their punters alive just long enough to fleece them of their last coin?
Anyway, if we combine the thrill of a casino with a broadband connection and a billion delusional people carrying a high density of greed genes and a dangerous level of financial market knowledge (i.e. none) what do we get? Opportunity that’s what we get.
Betfair (The Sporting Exchange Limited), has created Tradefair, a new home for the financial bettor and trader. The portal is a binaries trading exchange and traditional spread betting site.
Betfair revenues have seen exceptional growth: 2004:£60m, 2005:£107m, 2006:£144m, 2007:£181m
Investors include Balderton Capital (Benchmark Capital), Softbank and Index Ventures
Story here.
Spot Runner is the first Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV. With Spot Runner’s revolutionary approach, local businesses now have access to television, the most powerful marketing tool available—one that, due to its traditional cost and complexity, was previously out of reach.
Essentially Spot runner has produced generic advertisements across a wide range of market segments. These ads are catalogued on the Spot Runner web site for small businesses to select. Provide basic information about the company and the demographic of the target market, including the regions where the ad should be broadcast. Pick a schedule slot and hey presto, launch a TV advertising campaign. Since the advertisements are already produced, requiring just a little customisation, Spot Runner are able to offer campaigns from as little as $500.
Founders: Nick Grouf and David Waxman
Investors: Battery Ventures, Index Ventures, WPP, Interpublic Group, CBS Corporation ($60m)
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