Trident Capital Joins eXelate's Second Round of Funding

NEW YORK, Dec. 16, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- eXelate, the data engine powering privacy-safe audience access within the digital advertising ecosystem, today announced the addition of Trident Capital to the company's second round of funding, bringing the total financing to $16 million. Trident joins Menlo Ventures and Carmel Ventures in the company's latest round of funding. Trident Capital Senior Managing Director Evangelos Simoudis will join eXelate's Board of Directors.

Since its U.S. launch of the first data exchange in May 2008, its subsequent introduction of the first Data Management Platform for publishers in October 2009 and the company's unveiling of the first and only private marketplace for data in June 2010, eXelate has become the leader in publisher solutions for managing access to audience segments and creating a marketplace for monetizing audiences in a privacy-friendly manner. eXelate's data marketplace currently reaches nearly 200 million U.S. unique users per month fueled by publishers with high value audience data in the automotive, travel, shopping, B-to-B and demographic segments. The company's data management tools are the engine driving hundreds of millions of publisher-direct data transactions each month, protecting access to valuable audience assets for dozens of leading publishers.    

"I am thrilled to have Trident Capital join our team of industry-recognized investors, who are providing their resources and experience to help us continue to be the leading platform managing transactions between buyers and sellers of audience data. eXelate has emerged as the leading audience access and data delivery engine for digital advertising businesses including publishers, agencies, networks, and demand-side platforms. We will continue to deliver on our vision of ensuring that audience data is managed efficiently, transacted securely and handled in a privacy-safe fashion," said Meir Zohar, CEO and founder, eXelate.

"Trident has been an early investor in the online display advertising ecosystem and our investment in eXelate demonstrates the strong opportunity we see in this sector. Data is becoming an increasingly critical component impacting the effectiveness of online display advertising," said Evangelos Simoudis, Sr. Managing Director, Trident Capital. "After evaluating numerous online data related companies and performing a thorough analysis of this space, we selected eXelate because of its significant market traction, strong management team, large data marketplace and ability to provide publishers with a comprehensive solution for data protection, management and monetization. eXelate is positioned particularly well to emerge as a market leader."

eXelate will leverage the strong backing of its investors to continue to enhance its data management solution while driving new levels of audience data performance and consumer transparency. As evident in its recent leadership as part of the Open Data Initiative, eXelate is committed to leading the self-regulatory charge on terms that benefit both advertisers and consumers.

"It is critical that publishers continue to leverage their core audience asset in a way that protects their customer relationships, giving them flexibility to deliver data in a direct, transparent fashion or via the eXelate marketplace at scale and ultimately impacting their bottom line. The addition of solid backers like Trident Capital, as well as Menlo Ventures and Carmel Ventures, will only  enhance our ability to provide publishers with the tools necessary to extract maximum value from their audience," added Zohar.

About eXelate:

eXelate is the data engine powering privacy-safe audience data access within the digital advertising ecosystem. 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 over 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 Trident Capital:

Trident Capital is one of the world's leading venture capital and private equity firms with more than $1.8 billion of capital under management, including the recently closed Trident Capital Fund VII. The firm focuses on investments in Software and Information Technology-Enabled Services, Healthcare IT, Internet and CleanTech. Trident invests across multiple stages, including early and late stage venture capital as well as growth equity and buyouts. The firm has made over 160 investments since inception in 1993. Trident has investment offices in Palo Alto, CA and Westport, CT. For more information on Trident Capital, visit http://www.tridentcap.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