UK's Videoplaza secures $12M in funding to accelerate global expansion

Posted by Richard Kastelein in Breaking News on February 02, 2012  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Richard Kastelein on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube

Videoplaza, the leading global sell side ad management platform for video, announced today that it has received Series B US$12million in funding from Innovacom and Qualcomm Ventures. The funding is to further accelerate Videoplaza’s aggressive global expansion and to ensure their continued product leadership as video advertising inventory rapidly expands to new devices and platforms. Following a strong 2011, Videoplaza has grown its international client base and delivered 5x greater ad serving volumes in the last year. The company has opened new offices in Madrid, Berlin and Singapore, and serves a client base across 17 markets worldwide.

Traditionally the TV advertising market has represented a large opportunity – with a value today of around $160BN USD. As consumption evolves from broadcast to IP delivered content, publishers and broadcasters must gear up commercially and technologically to take advantage of this spend as it shifts on to new channels.

“We believe in picking sides and are 100% committed to the sell side, empowering broadcasters and publishers to effectively monetise their video inventory across any device or service. This investment allows us to further strengthen our commitment as we increase our R&D efforts and footprint to make sure our clients can build a sustainable business in a fast changing and ever more fragmented world,” commented Sorosh Tavakoli, CEO of Videoplaza.

The growth of multiple devices

The New IP-delivered TV represents a range of fantastic new opportunities for media owners to increase distribution, reach and revenues. However it also presents a real set of challenges, including device fragmentation, and developing monetisation policies across multiple platforms. Media owners need a clear strategy and a technical infrastructure to support them as they implement a device agnostic approach.

“With the number of connected devices booming, the New IP-delivered TV is clearly one of the most disruptive markets right now”, Bruno Dizengremel, Partner, Innovacom. “Not only have Videoplaza managed to sign up a large and high profile client base, their technology is at the heart of the monetisation strategy for these broadcasters and premium publishers. Our investment in Videoplaza reflects the importance we place upon developing revenue-generating opportunities across the New TV. Technology platforms will be increasingly important achieving this”.

Videoplaza has rapidly evolved from what was initially an online video business. The growth of connected devices means video is now delivered everywhere. By 2020 there will be around 10B connected mobile devices and media owners need to monetise their content efficiently, regardless of where it is consumed. Videoplaza’s technology platform today delivers advertising on all leading devices and services including Flash, Silverlight, HTML5, iOS devices, Android, Sony Playstation, Samsung Smart TVs, and closed IPTV environments etc. By 2013, Videoplaza expects more than half of its traffic to come from non-PC devices. Q4 of 2011 alone, 8% of the company’s traffic was generated from non-PC devices.

Videoplaza has received previous investment from venture capital firms Creandum and Northzone that also participated in the current investment round.