Mobile ad leader madvertise closes $10M investment

With over ten million dollars in funding, Berlin based madvertise has today announced plans to further expand aggressively into the European market. Within just two years, madvertise, with 1.4 billion monthly page impressions, has built one of the largest mobile ad networks in Europe and is the clear market leader in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with 35% of revenues already being generated internationally.

madvertise has also introduced a flurry of technical innovations over the last few months with best-in-class location based advertising, targeting, mobile rich media and video creatives. Last week, madvertise also announced that turnover increased more than 300% in the first half of 2011. The completion of the Series B financing is yet another successful milestone for the company.

Carsten Frien, CEO and co-founder of madvertise, said: “The second round funding from a Silicon Valley investor demonstrates the dynamic potential of the mobile advertising market in Europe and confirms madvertise’s strategy. The investment of renowned US investor Blumberg Capital is  recognition of our strong market vision, outstanding technology and rapid execution to have built madvertise into one of Europe's leading mobile advertising networks.” Carsten Frien added: “With Earlybird, who has significantly increased its investment in the B round, we already have one of the leading European VCs on board, so this is an ideal combination.”

David J. Blumberg, Managing Partner at Blumberg Capital, added: “The mobile advertising market in Europe has grownenormously and still holds enormous potential. Blumberg Capital invests primarily in innovative and technology-driven companies. madvertise, with its innovative technology and leading market position in German speaking countries provides the best base to grow and dominate the mobile advertising businessacross Europe. With our investment we aim to further develop this technological and market share leadership.”

Christian Nagel, Managing Partner at Earlybird, said: “We were confident that mobile advertising was about to reach an inflection point in Europe when we initially invested in 2010. Themarket has now really taken off and the madvertise team has done an excellent job in positioning the company as a true leader in the space, based on best-in-class technology and aggressive international expansion.”

With this significant funding madvertise will further strengthen its dominant position in the German speaking markets and continue to expand aggressively into other European markets. The company, headquartered in Berlin, currently has offices across Europe including Hamburg, London, Barcelona, Madrid and Milan, with several to be launched in the near future.

madvertise’s core strength is based on the quality of its „made in Germany“ technology and new product innovation: “Our technology is leading in Europe, so we can offer our partners the best-in-class products," said Carsten Frien. madvertise offers outstanding rich media and mobile video ads for smartphones and tablets, delivering high levels ofinteractivity, engagement and consumer conversion for brand advertisers. Forexample, madvertise delivers location-based advertising campaigns with an accuracy of 50 meters, which is unique in Europe.

In addition, publishers benefit significantly by maximizing their revenue with their apps and mobile websites and optimizing their fill rates through madvertise’s highly liquid market place and leading matching algorithms. As an additional attraction for developers, madvertise’s Developer Fund program (of five million Euros) gives publishers and app developers 100 percent of the revenue from all ads displayed in their mobile apps or on their mobile websites.