Oversubscribed Round of Financing to Accelerate Network Growth, Scale Next-Generation Real-time Semantic Analysis Solutions, and Expand Global Presence
SAN FRANCISCO – Kontera, the leading provider of relevant In-Text advertising and information solutions for web publishers, advertisers, and users, announced today that it has closed a $15.5 million round of financing. The round recognizes the company’s unique semantic-analysis technology, its profitability, and the significant expansion of its advertising network. Sequoia Capital led the financing round, with participation from Tenaya Capital and Carmel Ventures.
“Kontera has opened up the vast, uncharted territory of the internet – the detailed content of web pages,” said Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital. “Thanks to Kontera’s semantic analysis of the contents and meaning of a web page, users can now find information that previously lay buried and advertisements can be positioned with far greater precision. Kontera has shaped and now leads this new market, which is why we organized a financing to further expand its thriving and profitable business.”
The company had an exceptional 2008 and continues to see strong momentum in 2009. In May of 2009 comScore announced that Kontera was the fifth fastest growing internet advertising network, with a 40% increase in audience throughout the prior 12 months. Globally Kontera now reaches more than 100 million monthly unique users. Throughout this period Kontera has consistently attained double-digit quarter-on-quarter revenue growth.
Despite the current economic headwinds the demand for relevant In-Text information and In-Text advertising has continued to grow. Kontera’s advanced real-time semantic technology has set it apart from others, and allows it to deliver highly relevant information and ads directly within web text and webpage contents. The results are value-added information for Internet users, greater site engagement and unobtrusive revenue sources for publishers, and an interested targeted audience for advertisers.
“Sophisticated semantic analysis is critical for succeeding in this new market,” said Yoav Shaham, Kontera CEO and co-founder. “Similar to search based solutions, In-Text only works if one truly and deeply understands the page content and all its nuances. In our case we also use learning algorithms and predictive real-time analysis, to uncover the users’ intent. There are many interesting applications of our game-changing technology, and we believe that we are just getting started. We will use this financing to scale our network faster and to expand our real-time semantic analysis platform, products and solutions.”
About Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital provides venture capital funding to founders of startups who want to turn business ideas into enduring companies. As the “Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs”, Sequoia Capital’s Partners have worked with innovators such as Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bob Swanson of Linear Technology, Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Dan Warmenhoven of NetApp, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Jen-Hsun Huang of nVIDIA, Michael Marks of Flextronics, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen of YouTube, Dominic Orr and Keerti Melkote of Aruba Wireless Networks and Jonathan Kaplan of Pure Digital. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.
About Kontera
Kontera delivers the most relevant In-Text Advertising & Related Information solutions online. Kontera’s patented technology performs real-time semantic analysis of content and other information to dynamically hyper-link the terms that most accurately represent and predict user-intent and engagement. Kontera enhances consumer experience through superior phrase relevance, driving increased user interaction, unparalleled campaign performance for advertisers, and substantial revenue for publishers. Reaching more than 100 Million unique users per month, Kontera’s exclusive network features over 15,000 premium and niche publishers and represents a unique opportunity for advertisers to reach their target audiences through innovative text, rich media and video advertising units. Founded in 2003, Kontera is backed by Sequoia Capital, Tenaya Capital and Carmel Ventures and has offices in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta and Tel Aviv. For more about Kontera, visit: www.kontera.com.
