MaxPoint Interactive Raises $3M from Trinity Ventures to Accelerate Expansion of Neighborhood-Level Targeting Technology to Drive In-Store Sales for Online Advertisers

CARY, N.C., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- MaxPoint Interactive today announced that it has secured its first institutional round of $3 million in funding from Trinity Ventures, a premier investor in early-stage information technology companies, based in Silicon Valley. MaxPoint will use these funds to expand and accommodate customer demand for its proprietary neighborhood-level targeting technology, which has increased in-store sales nationwide for online advertisers' brands. Leading CPG brands, retailers in multiple categories, financial service organizations, auto manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies are already successfully leveraging MaxPoint's technology to improve in-store sales nationwide.

"Research has shown that over one quarter of online display ads are currently delivered outside the radius of a local store location. This means that national brands and retailers are wasting a large portion of their online advertising budgets, as these impressions are not driving in-store sales," said Joe Epperson, CEO and co-founder of MaxPoint Interactive. "By introducing increased geographic and data set precision into the ad targeting process, we can deliver neighborhood-level targeting on a national scale, empowering brand marketers to focus their ad spend on their prime target consumers living within the radius of the store."

MaxPoint, the only provider in the marketing industry of precision neighborhood-level online ad targeting, employs two proprietary data-driven technologies to drive in-store purchases for national and local brands. By uniquely combining multiple data sets to form Customized Consumer Profiles, MaxPoint can identify the best potential customer for any brand – those that are both interested and capable of purchasing the product. To do this, MaxPoint draws from point-of-sale data from more than 65,000 retail stores nationwide, demographics, psychographics and other publicly available data sources – all of which contain no personally identifiable information (PII).

MaxPoint then uses its precise Digital Zip™ technology to find the very best neighborhoods anywhere in the U.S. for the product or service in question, based on the characteristics of the people who live there. MaxPoint's Digital Zips segment the country into 34,000 distinct neighborhoods, each with approximately 3,400 households, allowing marketers to pinpoint locations within a retailer's trade area and to more precisely serve up their targeted online ads. MaxPoint evaluates each individual online impression in real-time, delivering the campaign creative only if the impression matches the brand's Customized Consumer Profile and falls into one of its prime Digital Zips – without using cookies as part of the ad serving solution.

Epperson added, "By working with Trinity Ventures, and leveraging their proven expertise and experience in retail, consumer branding, and technology, MaxPoint can connect online advertising to true offline purchase data in new way and deliver the right consumers to brand and retail marketers. And with Gus Tai on the Board, I feel a great sense of partnership."

"Today, buying online advertising is a broken promise for retailers and brand marketers who are used to tracking advertising spends against true offline purchases," said Gus Tai, General Partner with Trinity Ventures. "We believe that MaxPoint has the technology, the passion and the management team to deliver the information that retailers and brand marketers are craving – how online advertising drives offline purchases. This is not accomplished with impressions, clicks or 'virality,' but actual dollars. We believe that the real market opportunity isn't just optimizing online advertising; it's optimizing the entire advertising industry, including all the offline advertising, from FSIs, fliers and television advertising, which will eventually move online."

For more information about MaxPoint's precision online advertising technology and how to incorporate it into a brand's online campaign, visit MaxPoint at www.maxpointinteractive.com.

About Trinity Ventures

Founded in 1986, Trinity Ventures, a boutique firm, partners with passionate entrepreneurs to transform revolutionary ideas into reality. With over $1 billion under management, Trinity Ventures was founded on the principle of personal engagement and mutual respect with the entrepreneurs we fund. Trinity Ventures focuses on early stage technology ventures with a particular emphasis on digital media, Internet services, mobility, security and software markets.

Trinity Ventures has invested in more than 100 ventures, including such leading companies as Affinity Labs (acquired by Monster.com), Aruba Networks (ARUN), Bix (acquired by Yahoo!: YHOO), Blue Nile (NILE), Crescendo Communications (acquired by Cisco: CSCO), Extreme Networks (EXTR), Forte Software (FRTE), IntruVert Networks (acquired by Network Associates: NWK), LoopNet (LOOP), Modulus Video (acquired by Motorola: MOT), Network Alchemy (acquired by Nokia: NOK), Photobucket (acquired by News Corporation: NWS), SciQuest, Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai Technologies: AKAM), Starbucks (SBUX), Sygate Technologies (acquired by Symantec: SYMC) and Wall Data (WALL).

About MaxPoint Interactive

Founded in 2007, MaxPoint has developed a real-time neighborhood-level targeting technology that drives in-store sales for online advertisers and brand marketers. MaxPoint uniquely combines offline purchase data, demographics, psychographics and other publicly available data to form Customized Consumer Profiles for any brand marketer. Using these together with its proprietary Digital Zips™, MaxPoint identifies the neighborhoods with the best potential customer – one who is both able and interested in purchasing the advertised product – for any brand and delivers targeted online display ads to them where they live and work. This proven neighborhood-level targeting technology has driven an increase in in-store sales at a national scale for automotive, CPG, retail, financial service and pharmaceutical brands. MaxPoint is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., with offices in New York, San Francisco and Austin, Texas. For more information please visit www.maxpointinteractive.com.

SOURCE MaxPoint Interactive