Emeryville, California-based video ad platform Tubemogul has raised a $ 20 million Series C round of funding, the company announced Thursday. The round is led by new investor Northgate Capital, with existing investors Trinity Ventures and Foundation Capital coming back for more as well.
Tubemogul wants to use the new infusion of money to accelerate its hiring, and open up additional international offices. “New offices will be in Austin, Sao Paolo, Berlin and Tokyo” the company’s communications director David Burch told me via email, adding: “We plan to significantly grow existing offices in Sydney — our biggest satellite — London, Toronto, Singapore, Kiev and throughout the US (New York, Chicago, L.A.).” With this round, Tubemogul has raised a total of $ 35 million.
Readers who’ve been following the online video space for some time may still remember Tubemogul as a company that used to provide syndication and analytics for online video makers. Tubemogul sold that part of the business in January, and has been exclusively concentrating on video advertising ever since. That change of focus seems to be working for the company: Tubemogul served 1,125,866,000 video ads in November, according to comScore. The company hired 57 new employees in the past six months, bringing the total headcount to 132.
The most recent infusion of cash tells us two things: First of all, hiring talent in the Bay Area is getting more and more expensive. And secondly, online advertising is ramping up, with a lot more growth potential ahead. Tubemogul and its investors are betting that a significant portion of that money is going to be spent via so-called real-time-bidding on ad slots. And analysts seem to agree: A recent Forrester study, which was commissioned by one of Tubemogul’s competitors, estimated that real-time bidding for video ads will reach $ 667 million in 2013.
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