Dive Brief:
- Ad fraud technology company Integral Ad Science raised $67 million, including $27 million in equity funding from venture capital investment.
- The additional $40 million came in the form of debt financing.
- Ad tech has been a tough sector for raising investment, but mobile video and ad fraud are two areas proving to be of interest for VC dollars.
Dive Insight:
Ad tech has seen a slowdown in pulling in venture capital investments of late, but mobile video firms are getting interest, and combating ad fraud is also getting VC attention. Ad tech company Integral Ad Science raised $67 million total combining $27 million from a VC group headed by Sapphire Ventures and the remaining $40 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank.
Scott Knoll, CEO of Integral Ad Science, said he understands the tough financing marketplace for ad tech and decided to get additional funding now when the company isn’t desperate for a cash infusion given its reported three years of profitability and what Knoll described as “100% top line revenue growth” year-over-year. He described the ad tech funding landscape to The Wall Street Journal as “only going to be harder to raise going forward.”
He added, “Ad tech is a very difficult market, and a lot of investors have scar tissue. But when you look at what we are doing, which is the quantification of ad quality, long term we think that’s an incredibly huge market. And we feel like we are just scratching the surface.”
Integral Ad Science, which had previously raised $49.8 million from investors, plans to use the fresh injection to expand its digital reach.