Location-based advertising firm xAd raises US$50m
- 05 September, 2014 15:00
US-based localisation ad technology vendor, xAd, has raised US$50 million (AUD$53.5m) in investment as it expands its footprint globally.
The funding round was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), which also has investments in Dropbox, Twitter, Shazam and Snapchat. xAd’s existing investors, Emergence Capital and Softbank Capital, along with Silicon Valley Bank, also participated.
In a statement, xAd said there were no immediate plans for the recent funding and that it hadn’t been seeking to raise the sum, but did flag acquisitions as a focus. According to CrunchBase, the company has raised US$74m in four rounds of capital raising since its launch in 2009.
xAd delivers a location-based targeting technology that allows advertisers to address messages and ads to specific audiences based on their proximity to a location or in-store. It also offers geomarketing measurement, retargeting and search capabilities, and claims to power 70 per cent of directory apps.
The company recently partnered with programmatic buying platform provider, PubMatic, to offer a location-enabled mobile advertising marketplace.
The company has been busy expanding its product portfolio and in April launched Footprints, a visualisation platform for real-time mobile location targeting, store visitation information, insights and measurement solutions. The platform is designed to give an advertiser insights into consumer behaviour at a local level and in-store.
Related: What you need to know about location-based mobile marketing
xAd also launched in markets outside of the US last year, including the UK and India, and says it will expand into eight countries across EMEA and Asia-Pacific, including Australia, this year. At present, the company says it has nearly 300 global brand customers.
“Our technology continues to push the limits of what’s possible in mobile advertising and the world is just starting to understand the immense power of location-based ad targeting,” xAd CEO, Dipanshu ‘D’ Sharma, stated.
“Our rapid business acceleration has been a direct result of the performance that we are able to generate for our SMB, mid-market and agency customers.”
In its financial year to 31 December 2013, the company doubled revenue to $65 million, and grew its US client base by more than 300 per cent, as well as increase staff headcount by 75 per cent. xAd claims to serve 40 billion ad requests per month for 1.5m global advertisers, and reach 160m unique mobile consumers globally.
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia
