Adap.tv, a online video advertising company that changed strategies earlier this year after dipping a toe in the market, has seen enough luck with its second try to merit a big $13 million funding round from new investor Spark Capital and returning investors Redpoint Ventures and Gemini Israel Fund, bringing its total funding to $23 million.
San Mateo, Calif.-based Adap.tv’s initial product was contextually targeted overlaid videos, similar to ScanScout, but earlier this year the company moved to fill another need for publishers: finding the most valuable ads to show on a particular video by comparing a spread of ad networks and a publisher’s internal sales.
The new product, called Adap.tv OneSource, is centered upon compatibility with anyone and everyone in video advertising, from ad networks to ad formats to ad serving platform to custom video players, and incorporates custom rules for determining which ad is most lucrative and appropriate at any given time. Alongside the strategic shift, the company laid off some of its no longer relevant team and made new hires.
Because I’m traveling, I wasn’t able to talk to Adap.tv to try to get a customer list, but if I can procure one tomorrow I’ll update this post. I do find it interesting that the company jumped out of its initial market given how early it is, but it’s also hard to say yet whether that reflects badly on the market or not. The CEO of former competitor VideoEgg says the market for in-video ads will be worth only $50 to $60 million this year for companies other than YouTube, and even YouTube is supposedly considering showing pre-rolls.
Note: Just for full disclosure’s sake, another startup in the video advertising space, BrightRoll, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.
