AllThingsD » Eric Litman

A Velvet Rope for Mobile Media Buyers and Sellers, Run by Medialets

Peter Kafka — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:30:33 +0000

Publishers who worry that digital ad tech is hammering their premium pricing are increasingly turning to private exchanges, where they hope a velvet-rope approach will keep keep bargain buyers out. Here’s a similar approach from mobile ad start-up Medialets, which has created an exchange featuring ad inventory from “more than 40 of the world’s top publishers,” who Medialets won’t identify. The exchange is nonexclusive, so buyers and sellers can still work with offerings from Google, Apple and smaller players like Millennial Media, which is looking to go public.

More Money for Mobile Ads: Medialets Raises Another $8.4 Million

Peter Kafka — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:15:40 +0000

Mobile ads are a smallish business with very big growth projections, which is why investors are happy to pour money into the industry. Today’s example: Mobile ad start-up Medialets has raised another $8.4 million, bringing the New York-based company’s total funding to $18 million over the last couple of years.

An SEC filing indicates that previous backers Foundry Group and DFJ Gotham have reinvested in the company. And CEO Eric Litman says he brought in new investors as well, but he won’t identify them.

He would offer up some basic metrics on his firm’s growth, though: Medialets now has 70 employees, who are working on mobile ad campaigns that average around $150,000 per buy. Most of that comes from “in-app” ads that run on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms, but there is increasing interest in mobile Web advertising as well, Litman says.

Speaking of that: What’s his take on Adobe’s move away from its Flash standard for mobile devices? “I think it’s an awesome opportunity for Adobe to make lots of money getting lots of people to upgrade their tools,” Litman says.

Is he being flip? Nope, he says — he figures that developers who have been building for Flash will simply move to Adobe’s upcoming Edge standard. “When Adobe comes out with new tools, and it’s a reasonable facsimile of what Flash used to do, all those same developers are going to go out and buy it.”

Here’s an example of what Medialets is selling — a Dunkin’ Donuts ad that ran on an EA Scrabble app for the iPhone:

Another Ad Network? Yes, and This One's for iPhone Apps: Medialets Raises $4 Million.

Peter Kafka — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:00:35 +0000

Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users have downloaded one billion apps for their devices in nine months. Someone other than Steve Jobs and co. ought to be able to make money from that, right?

That’s more or less the logic behind Medialets, a start-up that serves up ads on Apple’s (AAPL) mobile applications, and to a lesser degree, programs designed for Google’s (GOOG) Android mobile platform. The New York-based company, founded last June, is announcing a $4 million Series A round led by Foundry Group. DFJ Gotham and angel investor Bobby Yazdani also participated.

Medialets also provides free analytics services for mobile applications. But its revenue comes from its mobile ad platform, which specializes in serving up iPhone and Android app users.

Given that mobile ads in general are in their infancy, this is a nascent market at best. Medialets CEO Eric Litman figures that the market for mobile display ads tops out at perhaps $300 million, and that ads for iPhone and Android apps can’t be more than $100 million.

But he figures that number will shoot up rapidly, of course, and perhaps hit $400 million within four years. He’s also betting that the majority of apps, and the majority of apps downloaded, will be free, advertising-supported ones.

In order for that to happen, both apps and the ads that run on them will have to move past the novelty stage. This Medialets-produced ad for Dockers, shown here running on SGN’s iBowl game, is sort of interesting. But it seems more like a proof of concept than anything else.

Still, it’s a start: