eXelate Closes $15 Million Round of Funding

NEW YORK, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- eXelate, the first and largest open marketplace for audience targeting data, and the leader in data management tools for publishers, today announced the closing of a $15 million second round of funding led by Silicon Valley's Menlo Ventures with participation of Israel's Carmel Ventures, who led the company's $4 million "A" round.

Menlo Ventures Partner Mark Siegel will join Mr. Shlomo Dovrat, General Partner and co-founder of Carmel Ventures on eXelate's Board of Directors which was recently expanded to include New York Times Company Senior Vice President Digital Operations Martin Nisenholtz and IPG's Mediabrands Ventures CEO Matt Freeman.

Since eXelate's U.S. launch of the eXelate eXchange in May 2008, the Company has rapidly grown its revenues and expanded both its footprint of accessible audience data (to 150 million U.S. Unique Visitors) as well as its suite of solutions to enable buyers and sellers of data to interact in an efficient, highly-privacy, friendly manner. Most recently, eXelate has been focusing on enhancing these tools to uniquely address the needs of publishers. With the launch of their teXi: Data Management and Private Marketplace toolsets for publishers, eXelate has broken new ground in giving publishers an easy way to centralize data management, privacy and latency monitoring and data monetization functions.  eXelate will be leveraging the proceeds from the new round of investment to continue to enhance its data marketplace footprint, as well as expand the functionality of its robust data management toolset.

Through their association with groups such as the Network Advertising Initiative and proprietary consumer privacy tools such as the Preference Manager, eXelate has also been a leader in empowering consumers to have a better understanding of how targeted online advertising works and in providing greater transparency and control over the process.

"Since introducing the first Data Exchange, we've always led the way in offering publishers the best monetization and control solutions for audience data, while enabling leading players in the display advertising eco-system to flexibly access best of breed data at scale, all without compromising user privacy," said Meir Zohar, the CEO and founder of eXelate. "Now, this outstanding round of investment capital coupled with a great new partner like Menlo Ventures and further commitment from Carmel, the sky is the limit as to the kinds of breakthroughs for advertisers and publishers that we can create. eXelate is truly ready for the next chapter in the story of our data market leadership."

"If you're going to enter a new market, whether as an investor or as a business partner, it's best to do it with the company that is not only a leader, but a visionary innovator in that market. eXelate embodies both of these values and that's why we have chosen to invest in them," said Mark Siegel, Managing Director, Menlo Ventures. "We're impressed with the strategies the eXelate team has formulated for helping to expand their integral presence in the audience data driven ad market, and how they have tactically and successfully implemented against these strategies, particularly with their focus on publisher-centric offerings."

"The entire online advertising ecosystem is driven by data, and no company is better positioned to both supply the industry's needs and help publishers manage this data supply than eXelate," said Shlomo Dovrat, General Partner and Co-Founder, Carmel Ventures. "eXelate has established a unique solution to help publishers combat the challenges of data leakage and continue to build new sources of online revenue beyond advertising. We are excited to be continuing our commitment to eXelate and to be joined by Menlo Ventures, which brings significant added value to the company."

"We're thrilled to have the renewed support of Carmel Ventures and are excited about our new partnership with Menlo Ventures, which now provides us with deep strategic and financial roots in both Silicon Valley and the 'far east coast'," added eXelate CEO Meir Zohar.

About eXelate:

eXelate is the world's first and largest open marketplace for behavioral targeting data and the leader in data management tools. Through participation on the eXelate eXchange and access to proprietary data management tools such as eXelate's teXi, data buyers build an instant behavioral targeting function and optimize their campaign delivery, while data sellers gain direct control over their audience data distribution and build a new privacy–friendly income stream. The eXchange includes over 50 top ad network, agency and demand-side platform buyers and dozens of leading publishers, who deliver targeting data on 150M U.S. unique users in lucrative verticals including Business-to-Business, Auto, Travel, Finance, Shopping and registration-based Demographics. For more information please visit www.exelate.com.

About Menlo Ventures:

Menlo Ventures provides long-term capital and management support to early-stage and emerging-growth companies. Menlo is one of Silicon Valley's oldest venture capital partnerships, and has organized and managed ten venture funds since their inception in 1976. With over $4 billion under management since inception, and a team with over two hundred years of collective experience in technology, marketing, sales and general management, they have the resources to support the most ambitious of projects.

For more information visit: www.menloventures.com/

About Carmel Ventures:

With over $600 million currently under management, several successful exits, and a growing portfolio of promising start-ups, Carmel is among Israel's top-tier venture capital funds. Carmel's investments are focused primarily on early stage companies in the fields of Software, Communications, Internet, Digital Media, Semiconductors, and Consumer Electronics. Founded in 2000 by pioneers and leaders of the Israeli high tech industry, Carmel provides significant capital and active, hands-on support through the growth cycle of its portfolio companies and is recognized as a true company building fund in Israel. Carmel, headquartered in Herzliya, Israel enjoys a worldwide network of industry, strategic and investment resources.

Carmel is an affiliate of the Viola Group, a leading innovative private equity investment group with $2B under management focused on technology-based investment opportunities in Israel.

For more information visit: www.carmelventures.com

SOURCE eXelate