WideOrbit Inc. is a company to watch because its technology addresses a fundamental problem for media companies today: tightening the connection between offline and online advertising sales in an age when ads are spreading across a range of mediums. Its products are used to centrally manage the traffic, billing and reporting involved in coordinating ads across a range of platforms, including Internet, network television, cable and radio.
The company
announced Thursday that it has raised $14.5 million in a third round of private capital from three prominent investors -- Khosla Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Hearst Corp.'s venture arm. The company's last investment round came in 2002, when it raised $8 million, $6 million of which came from the New York Times Co., Meredith Corp. and Liberty Corp. Along with these companies, WideOrbit's customers include Gannett, NBC, Telemundo, Madison Square Garden, Scripps Television Group and Qualcomm/MediaFlo.
In an
interview with Reuters about its latest funding, WideOrbit founder and CEO Eric Mathewson says that "underlying inventory systems that run media were very
archaic. I said to
myself, 'How do you create an exchange like the New York Stock
Exchange that has run time, or real-time pricing?' "
Mathewson, who launched the company in 1999, is also an investor through his private equity
firm, Prescient Capital (which also uses WideOpen's headquarters in San
Francisco). Prescient's prior investments include InfoSpace.com Inc., Xoom.com, OpenTable.com, Slimsense.com and LocalMusic.com.
- Alain SherterSee Feb. 28 press release from WideOrbitSee Feb. 28 story from Reuters
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