Monterosa Secures £1.2m Series-A Funding Round

LONDON, October 7, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

• Fundraising led by 24Haymarket, joined by Angel CoFund  

• The Mill's Robin Shenfield appointed chairman 

Monterosa, the leading multiscreen activation specialist that works with broadcasters, brands and sports rights-holders to activate mobile audiences, has announced a major fundraising and key additions to its board. The funding is to accelerate the company's growth into sports marketing and activation for global brands, rights-holders and broadcasters, and to further develop the company's award-winning LViS platform.

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The development follows the recent addition of Adidas and World Rugby to Monterosa's sports roster, in addition to broadcasting deals with BBC Worldwide, TF1 and Talpa. The company's award-winning LViS platform has picked up accolades for "Best Platform Innovation" in 2015 at both the Broadcast Digital and Mediatel awards. 

Tom McDonnell, CEO of Monterosa, said: "These developments are a huge boost to our recent success in addressing a global opportunity; namely helping brands, sports rights-holders and broadcasters drive greater audience engagement and capture data across multiple screens and channels. Having developed a platform that is both scalable and applicable to a diverse range of creative content, we now have the firepower to take the company and platform forward."

The fundraising was led by boutique investment firm 24Haymarket and included Angel CoFund and Robin Shenfield, CEO of global advertising visual-effects company, The Mill. Marek Gumienny, a founding director of 24Haymarket, has joined the board, with Shenfield appointed as chairman. The investment will be used to expand Monterosa's team across sales, product development and delivery, extending its already-global footprint in sports marketing, brand activation and broadcasting.

Marek Gumienny said: "We at 24Haymarket are very impressed with the early-stage adoption of Monterosa's platform across the media spectrum from major international broadcasters to content producers, rights-holders and brands. We are delighted to invest in partnership with Tom and the rest of the team and to support their vision of continuing to build the pre-eminent multiscreen activation platform combining leadership in technology and creative solutions."   

Robin Shenfield added: "Mobile has become hugely relevant to brands, particularly where content can be synchronised and made relevant across multiple screens, including live television. The creativity that Monterosa has brought to producing engaging content, especially for sports and entertainment formats, is hugely impressive, as is their development of LViS, which is recognised to be the most robust, scalable and user-friendly platform in the world for developing real-time games and other applications."

Monterosa is differentiated from its competitors through an enterprise-grade multiscreen platform combined with a track record in providing award-winning creative solutions. The company's LViS platform is a cloud-based tool that content producers and developers use to connect mobile apps at extremely high volumes with primetime TV programming, sporting events, ad spots, retail screens, sports-venue screens and digital out-of-home networks. Where other mobile activation solutions require convoluted app downloads, audio recognition or QR codes, Monterosa's LViS provides versatile HTML5 and APIs that can be used within existing sites, apps or social-media platforms. For example, France's largest commercial broadcaster TF1 uses LViS to power interactivity in shows such as The Voice and Big Brother (Secret Story) and will use LViS for audience participation in the Rugby World Cup.

Monterosa's success coincides with a huge uptick in the consumption of media on mobile devices and the increasing trend for content to be consumed simultaneously across multiple screens.  Millward Brown's AdReaction 2014 reports that the owners of smartphones and tablets typically spend a third of their time watching a "second screen" while watching television. By embracing the new consumer context and deliberately involving audiences in multi-screen interactivity, brands can capture more attention and communicate messages closer to the point of influence, purchase and data capture.

Monterosa was established by McDonnell and ex-BBC executives Simon Brickle and Igor Loboda. The company's early successes included Test The Nation, Endemol's BAFTA award-winning Million Pound Drop, ITV's first second-screen app for the FIFA World Cup 2010, and Channel 4's Horse Tracker app for the Grand National.

The success of LViS has been widely recognised with a string of high-profile awards from BAFTA, the Royal Television Society, Broadcast Digital and the Sports Technology Awards. LViS has established itself as the interaction technology of choice for TV broadcasters including Channel 4, France's TF1, Norway's TV 2, Chile's C13, The Voice producer Talpa, BBC Worldwide and Chime Sports Marketing. Monterosa and Channel 4 won the Best Broadcaster Technology award at the Sports Technology Awards for LViS-powered Horse Tracker in 2015.

About Monterosa (http://www.monterosa.co.uk)

Monterosa's mission is to provide outstanding tools and services that revolutionise the way in which producers, broadcasters and advertisers make interactive, social and second-screen TV.  Monterosa's activation platform LViS allows brands and media owners to connect mobile audiences in real-time with TV, DOOH, big screens at venues and in-stores, the web and across social media without the need for new apps. LViS scales to extremely large numbers of users and delivers experiences in HTML5 that can be embedded anywhere.

The company's client roster features some of the biggest names in international TV and advertising, including TF1, France Télévisions, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, Endemol, Shine, FremantleMedia, MediaCom, Mother, BBH, Volkswagen and Burberry.

About the Angel CoFund

Launched in 2011, the Angel CoFund is a privately run fund that works alongside groups of business angels to invest in high potential SMEs across the UK, directly providing funding as well as encouraging the expansion and development of the business angel market.

Backed by the British Business Bank and the Government's Regional Growth Fund, the £100m Angel CoFund is able to make initial investments of between £100,000 and £1 million into businesses, alongside syndicates of business angels.

To date the fund has supported over 50 companies (for example Yplan, Gousto, Crowd Vision and Micrima) providing over £24 million in direct investment alongside more than £100m from business angels and other investors, making it the most active early stage fund in the country.

The Angel CoFund is a long-term investor and, in aggregate, sets aside £1 of further capital for every £1 it invests. The model gives portfolio companies and co-investors the support they need to propel strong growth.

http://www.angelcofund.co.uk

For further information on Monterosa, please contact: 

Cheryl Clarke at Mushroom Media on:
Tel: +44-(0)7939554109
E: [email protected]

SOURCE Monterosa