Tapad Closes $6.5 Millon Funding; Adds Firsthand Technology Value Fund to Roster of Top-Tier Tech Funds

NEW YORK, March 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Tapad, the leading provider of unified cross-device advertising solutions, today announced the closing of its Series B rounds of funding for $6.5 million, following a record 2012 fiscal year with a 604% year-over-year growth rate.

Publicly traded venture capital fund Firsthand Technology Value Fund, Inc. (NASDAQ: SVVC) joined the company's impressive roster of investors. Founding investors FirstMark Capital and Avalon Ventures also participated in the round. Other Tapad investors include: Metamorphic Ventures, Lerer Ventures, as well as former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt, AppNexus founder Brian O'Kelly, former Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau, 24/7 Real Media co-founder Geoff Judge and QUIGO founder and CEO Mike Yavonditte.

In addition to its notable 2012 FY, Tapad is currently on pace to achieve a 200% revenue increase for Q1 2013 over Q1 2012. The company's rapidly expanding client base has grown to include more than 75 brands of Fortune 500 companies, and comprises all four major advertising holding companies in the U.S.  

The financing will be used to maintain Tapad's pace of growth in the U.S. and further Tapad's lead as the premier cross-device advertising solution for the world's leading global brands.

"This latest investment in Tapad affirms the critical role our company has played in pioneering unified cross-device advertising," said Founder and CEO Are Traasdahl. "We were the first technology that enabled advertisers to get a unified view across all screens and are delighted that Firsthand and such a distinguished group of investors share our commitment to advancing this field."

"Tapad's innovations have blown the doors open for brands to connect with consumers across screens," said Kevin Landis, CEO of Firsthand Technology Value Fund, Inc. "We have tremendous confidence in Tapad and its ability to generate real results in a space with such enormous market potential. We are delighted to join forces with the company at such an important stage in their growth."

Tapad was founded in 2010 and has tripled in staff size in the last 12 months alone. Tapad opened four new offices in key markets in 2012: Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit while doubling its NYC office. The company has just opened an office in Miami.

For more information on Tapad or any of its cross-device advertising solutions, please visit www.tapad.com. 

About Tapad
Tapad Inc., is an ad technology firm renowned for its breakthrough, unified, cross-device advertising solutions. The company offers the largest in-market opportunity for advertisers to address the new and ever-evolving reality of media consumption on smartphones, tablets, home computers and smart TVs. Employed by numerous Fortune 500 brands, Tapad's proprietary cross-platform audience buying technology provides an accurate, unified view of consumers across all screens.  Tapad is backed by major venture firms and "a hell of a list of entrepreneurs who created some of the most valuable online advertising companies of the last decade" (TechCrunch). Tapad is based in New York and has offices in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco.

About Firsthand Technology Value Fund
Firsthand Technology Value Fund, Inc. is a publicly traded venture capital fund that invests in technology and cleantech companies. More information about the Fund and its holdings can be found online at www.firsthandtvf.com.

About FirstMark Capital
Based in New York City, FirstMark Capital is an early stage venture capital firm investing in visionary entrepreneurs who are creating new markets with innovative technology solutions or fundamentally changing existing markets by applying a fresh approach or new business model. FirstMark partners early in a company's lifecycle, offering deep industry insight, a broad network of relationships and the operational expertise to build lasting businesses. Select historical investments include Riot Games (Acquired by Tencent); Duck Creek Technologies (Acquired by Accenture); Netgear; Boomi (Acquired by Dell); StubHub (Acquired by eBay); Netegrity (Acquired by CA); OutlookSoft (Acquired by SAP); and Navic Networks (Acquired by Microsoft). Current investments include: Pinterest, Knewton, Aereo, SecondMarket, Shopify, Lot18 and Lumosity. For more information, visit: www.firstmarkcap.com.

About Avalon Ventures
Avalon Ventures is a venture capital fund comprised of former entrepreneurs driven by passionate people pursuing disruptive ideas in ever changing market environments. Avalon's long-standing and successful focus has been on seed and early stage companies, including many it formed in the life science and information technology sectors.

Contact:
Andy Morris, The Morris + King Company
[email protected] / 212.561.7465
or
Susan Lietz, Tapad
[email protected] / 917.499.5053

SOURCE Tapad