SAP Ventures Leads New Round After Rapid Company Growth and Launch of Breakthrough OpenX Enterprise Revenue Serving Platform
LOS ANGELES – OpenX Technologies, Inc. (OpenX), the world’s leading independent provider of digital advertising technology, today announced it has completed a $20 million Series D funding round that brings the total investment in OpenX to more than $50 million. SAP Ventures led the round with the participation of additional new investors AOL Ventures, Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, Inc., and Presidio Ventures, the wholly owned investment vehicle of Sumitomo Corporation. Existing investors Accel Partners, Index Ventures and DAG Ventures also participated in the round. As a result of its investment, SAP Ventures will take a seat on the company’s board of directors. OpenX will use the additional funds to accelerate growth, including international expansion, and to drive further adoption of OpenX Enterprise, the company’s Software as a Service revenue serving product for large publishers.
With the recent launch of the new OpenX Enterprise platform, OpenX offered the online advertising market the first true total revenue serving platform. Since OpenX Enterprise combines an ad server and an ad exchange, it enables publishers to manage exclusive, guaranteed, non-guaranteed and real-time revenue sources all in one unified platform. As a result, for the first time publishers can maximize yield across all their ad revenue channels in real-time.
OpenX has made significant progress over the last year in terms of both product adoption and revenue. Adoption of OpenX Enterprise by major publishers has grown rapidly and the platform is now used by hundreds of customers around the world, including Groupon, Excite Japan and Business Insider. Over the past year, OpenX Market revenue has grown nearly 600%. The company has struck international partnerships for the exchange with Dentsu-cci in Japan and Orange-France Telecom in Europe.
“We think the OpenX real-time revenue serving technology platform has enormous potential to be a major force in online advertising,” said Nino Marakovic, managing director, SAP Ventures. “We see digital advertising rapidly becoming an integral part of the enterprise ecosystem as it becomes more and more core to businesses. We believe that OpenX will become an industry-defining platform in this rapidly growing sector. In addition to our investment, we also plan to leverage our relationships to help OpenX expand its reach.”
“The online advertising technology space has needed a robust alternative for many years and we believe OpenX, with its innovative technology, provides a platform that is both an alternative and a paradigm shift for the industry,” said Hiro Yoshikawa, principal, Mitsui Global Investment. “We’re also particularly impressed with the company’s execution of its global-local OpenX Market strategy that is typified by the impressive OpenX Market Japan partnership with Dentsu-cci. We think this model will also work well throughout the APAC region and we’re pleased to begin our involvement with the company,” said Sanjay Pichaiah, principal, Mitsui Global Investment.
“We’re extremely pleased with the rapid progress OpenX has made and we’re delighted by the funding and support of our investor base,” said Tim Cadogan, chief executive officer, OpenX. “Having new investors representing one of the world’s largest enterprise companies (SAP), one of the world’s largest internet pure-plays (AOL) and two of the most important global Asian trading firms (Mitsui and Sumitomo) all coming together to invest in the global technology platform company we are creating is – we believe – a compelling and powerful mix.”
About OpenX
OpenX is the world’s leading independent provider of digital advertising technology that enables businesses to manage and maximize their ad revenue. OpenX products, including OpenX Enterprise and OpenX Market, provide a comprehensive revenue serving platform by combining ad serving with a unique ad exchange.
OpenX Technologies, Inc. is based in Los Angeles and is backed by leading investors including Accel Partners, Index Ventures, SAP Ventures, AOL Ventures, Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, Inc., Presidio Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. For more information, please visit www.openx.com.
OpenX is a trademark of OpenX Limited.
About SAP Ventures
SAP Ventures partners with outstanding entrepreneurs worldwide to build industry-leading businesses. We are funded by SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), the market leader in enterprise application software, and we leverage the relationship with SAP and its ecosystem for the benefit of portfolio companies. SAP Ventures invests in technology businesses that serve enterprises as customers or have enterprises as go-to market partners as well as companies that service consumers in their professional lives. Over the last 15 years, SAP Ventures has supported more than 100 companies on five continents. Past investments include Commerce One, Greenplum, MySQL, Red Hat, and WebEx. Current portfolio companies include Alfresco, Alteryx, Control4, Endeca, iYogi, LinkedIn, OnDeck, OpenX, Spring Wireless, Tealeaf, Tremor Media, and Zend. For more information, visit www.sapventures.com.
