Grows Customer Base 500% in Six Months, Opens UK Office and Data Center

NEW YORK – AdMeld (www.admeld.com), the leader in ad network optimization for premium publishers,  announced it closed an $8 million round of Series B funding led by Spark Capital and Foundry Group. The funding, which AdMeld will use to accelerate its sales and product development efforts, caps a period of strong momentum for the company. Over the past six months, AdMeld’s customer base has grown five-fold and it expanded into Europe by opening a London-based office and data center.

Currently more than 65 premium online publishers use AdMeld’s technology to increase ad revenues and reduce operating costs, including Discovery Communications, FOX News, The Huffington Post, IAC, Thomson Reuters, and World Wrestling Entertainment®.

“The response to our solution has been extraordinary,” said Michael Barrett, CEO, AdMeld. “Our technology solves a very real problem for publishers and demand for it has only increased as ad networks and exchanges have proliferated. Closing this round of funding means we can focus on solidifying our market leadership among premium publishers, evolving our core product, and completing development on some exciting new products for release in the Fall. We’re also pleased to be building a presence in the UK with the opening of our sales office and data center in London.”

“We’re delighted with AdMeld’s early success serving some of the world’s top web publishers,” said Seth Levine, Managing Director, Foundry Group. “Their vision is built on a strong technical foundation and a deep understanding of the challenges large publishers face in maximizing the value of their ad inventories. This investment will enable them to push forward on their current growth trajectory while continuing to deliver innovative solutions that deliver substantive results.”

AdMeld’s technology maximizes publishers’ revenues by dynamically selecting the most lucrative mix of ads across hundreds of ad networks and exchanges. AdMeld customers typically see an increase in revenues from remnant inventory between 30% and 300%. In addition, AdMeld provides its customers with centralized network performance reporting, unique brand protection tools such as FireMeld, and a range of white-glove services.

About AdMeld

AdMeld (www.admeld.com) enables premium online publishers to maximize their revenue from ad networks and minimize the risks and complexities of working with them. AdMeld’s optimization technology is designed to generate the highest possible yield from each impression, and its suite of management and reporting tools deliver publishers a high level of transparency and control. Founded in 2007 by Benjamin Barokas and Brian Adams, AdMeld is led by Michael Barrett, an experienced leader of premium new media companies. Major investors include Spark Capital and Foundry Group.

About Foundry Group

Foundry Group is a venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage information technology, Internet, and software startups. In addition to providing the necessary venture capital to get a company up and running, Foundry Group is committed to leveraging their experience in starting and growing companies, expertise in the technology industry, and network of relationships to help great entrepreneurs turn great ideas into great companies. Foundry Group is based in Boulder, Colorado, and invests in companies located across the United States. For more information, visit www.foundrygroup.com.

About Spark Capital

Spark Capital is a venture fund based in Boston, Mass. with investments focused on the conflux of the media, entertainment and technology industries. Over the last decade, Spark has been instrumental in the development of new markets and market leaders, such as Twitter, Akamai Technologies, thePlatform and Novatel Wireless. The Spark team includes former executives of major entertainment, media, and technology companies, such as IAC, Sony, Time Warner, Blockbuster, Lionsgate, Apple and Microsoft. With this deep experience and $622 million under management, Spark Capital provides world-class entrepreneurs and revolutionary companies with the resources to succeed in today’s marketplace. To learn more, visit http://www.sparkcapital.com.

New York, NY – March 10, 2009 – AdMeld (www.admeld.com), the leader in ad network optimization for premium publishers, today announced the release of FireMeld, the first web browser extension built exclusively for ad operations professionals. FireMeld integrates seamlessly with AdMeld’s ad network optimization technology to give publishers a new level of transparency and control over their discretionary ad inventory. The announcement was made today at the AdMonsters Publisher Forum in New Orleans.

FireMeld helps publishers identify the source of every network ad on their sites, including those ads that may cause channel conflict, are slow to load, inappropriate, or blank. Before FireMeld, diagnosing these kinds of problems required publishers to search through web page source code, a manual and painstaking process. FireMeld solves this problem by overlaying critical information about each ad directly on the publisher’s site and enabling ad ops personnel to turn off the offending ad or send an alert to AdMeld’s support team to take the appropriate action.

Ross Cohen, VP of Business Development at WorldNow said, “FireMeld is an extremely useful tool. It not only saves our ad operations team a great deal of time investigating and solving potential problems like channel conflict and blank ads, but it also gives us greater, real-time insight into all the creative units running on our sites.”

“As a team of ad operations and publishing veterans ourselves, we built FireMeld to give premium publishers a more complete view of their discretionary inventory than they’ve ever had,” said Benjamin Barokas, AdMeld’s co-founder. “FireMeld is the first tool of its kind and the latest in AdMeld’s suite of ad network management and reporting features. The response from our partners has been overwhelmingly positive, and we look forward to continuing to deliver world-class products and services, like FireMeld, that help our partners get the most value possible from their discretionary ad inventory.”

About AdMeld
AdMeld (www.admeld.com) helps premium online publishers maximize their revenue from ad networks and minimize the risks and complexities of working with them.  AdMeld’s optimization technology generates the highest possible yield from each impression, and its suite of management and reporting tools deliver publishers a high level of transparency and control. Founded in 2007 by Benjamin Barokas and Brian Adams, AdMeld is led by Michael Barrett, an experienced leader of premier new media companies. Major investors include Spark Capital and The Foundry Group.