UK performance marketing company, Digitalbox, has secured $1 million in venture capital funding for its native advertising platform, ContentClick.
The funding will be used to finance the expansion of the ContentClick service globally, with Digitalbox paying particularly close attention to territories with large-scale blogging networks and niche publishers.
A series of high net worth investors are said to have all contributed to this latest round and will join previous Digitalbox backers that include Sir Robin Miller, former chairman and CEO of Emap and Bill Dobbie, co-founder of Iomart, Maxymiser , and Cupid.
Since launching earlier this year, ContentClick has had an influx of over 500 publishers and bloggers sign up to use the service that turns online articles into more of a money-making endeavour.
Readership profiling
ContentClick’s algorithm mines editorial data so that it can build a reader profile with information about their intent. It can then serve relevant, sponsored content that the reader might also be interested in.
Although it is only in its third month of operation, ContentClick has recorded clickthrough rates that are above advertising industry averages and co-creator, Alex Attinger, believes this is only the beginning.
“ContentClick is already 400% above forecast and, within two short months, our network has over 500 bloggers and publishers as well as over twenty five brand advertisers,” Attinger said.
“This new funding will help us grow even faster and will be particularly valuable in financing our overseas expansion.”