Strategic Investment Fuels Aki’s Mission to Conquer Mobile Ad Inefficiency through Mobile Moment Targeting & Insights
San Francisco, CA – Aki Technologies, the first platform built for mobile moment advertising and insights, announced the closing of $3.75 million of in seed round funding. The funding will strengthen Aki’s mission to eliminate mobile advertising’s costly inefficiencies by helping brands engage consumers during their most receptive moments. The seed financing was led by private investment firm Blue Marlin Partners, with additional participation from serial tech entrepreneur and current AltSchool CEO Max Ventilla, advertising agency founders Eric Yang and Andrew Nevills, and former Global Dannon CMO and founder of ThinkingBig Santiago Mier.
Aki’s mobile moment advertising and insights platform provides brands and agencies with a clearer view into the mobile consumer journey, making it possible to identify and target the optimal moments for engagement. As a result, advertisers eliminate poorly-timed impressions that weigh down campaign performance and cut into the value of mobile ads.
“At a time when marketers are struggling to engage mobile consumers, Aki Technologies offers an approach that is both organically mobile and uniquely human,” said Eric Yang, former head of corporate strategy for Essence Digital North America. “Aki’s mobile moment platform combines the strengths of advertising targeting and data with a much-needed sensitivity to the consumer experience. This is a truly powerful solution for advertising’s 21st century challenges.”
Aki Technologies is founded by mobile pioneers Scott Swanson (Opera Mediaworks, Opera-acquired Mobile Theory, Glam Media and Oracle-acquired Vitrue) and Alvaro Bravo (Opera Mediaworks, Mobile Theory and Conversant-acquired Greystripe).
“Mobile advertisers have been trapped in a frustrating and costly inefficiency loop,” said Aki Co-Founder and CEO Scott Swanson. “They have incredible data and tools at their disposal, yet campaigns still miss the mark on impact and, in some cases, even work against brand perception.”
“At Aki Technologies, we’re transforming the mobile ad experience with a more meaningful approach to data and targeting,” said Aki Co-Founder and President, Alvaro Bravo. “By connecting brands and consumers during high-value moments—when consumers are in the most receptive mindsets for a specific brand message—Aki is introducing a revolutionary new approach to mobile marketing.”
Aki Technologies’ mobile moment platform enables brands and agencies to define specific targeting segments for mobile campaigns. Once the broader audience segment is defined (via demographic data, historical behavior data, third-party and/or CRM data), campaigns are targeted to the moments that best align with a specific brand, product, and/or message. Moments can be selected from a predefined set of more than 150 moments in Aki’s MomentTreeTM and/or built specifically for a brand or campaign. Aki’s platform, which is available for both full service and self-service campaigns, offers a more effective way to extract value from mobile data while, at the same time, providing a more consumer-friendly approach to advertising.
“We’ve started to bring in what we call the moments that matter and adding a mindset layer to what we’re doing,” said Dave Marsey, EVP and Managing Director of DigitasLBi San Francisco, the ad agency that handles media buying for Taco Bell, among others. “The team at Aki brought innovative, moment-based marketing technology that has helped us deliver on our latest campaign initiatives.”
Initially a bootstrapped company, Aki has already enabled mobile moment-targeted advertising campaigns for leading brands in Auto, Retail, CPG, QSR/Fast Casual, Finance, Spirits, Entertainment, Telecom, and more. Taco Bell’s Aki-enabled campaign was covered in Adweek earlier this year.
About Aki Technologies
Aki Technologies helps brands own the mobile moment. As the first ad platform built for mobile moment targeting and insights, Aki interprets the full range of mobile data signals to gauge and predict a consumer’s receptivity to brand advertising. Aki’s Mobile Moment Index™ ensures that brands reach consumers when they’re most receptive—and with the optimal creative format—while Aki’s Mobile Moment Performance Insights™ provide in-depth, moment-by-moment analysis to optimize success and inform future campaigns. With unmatched insight into the billions of data points that comprise mobile activity at any given moment, Aki transforms the ad experience for mobile consumers and increases advertising efficiency for brands. The company was founded by the mobile ad pioneers behind Mobile Theory (acquired by Opera in 2012), and has offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Visit http://www.a.ki or follow @akiunlocks to learn more.
