Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

Peer39 Raises Another $5 Million for Ad Targeting That Promises Not to Invade Your Privacy

Lots of investors will tell you that there’s too much money going into advertising technology start-ups–except for the deals they’re betting on. Here’s another wager: A $5.2 million round for Peer39, a display ad targeting company that has now raised about $27 million.

Peer39 used to be in the ad network business, but switched gears a couple years ago: Now it sells data that’s supposed to let ad buyers find their audiences more effectively.

The pitch: Unlike other ad targeting operations, which try to find audiences based on their online behavior, Peer39’s system figures out what’s actually on a given Web page, so buyers can place an appropriate ad. That’s supposed to improve the ad’s efficiency, while avoiding messy privacy problems.

The company says it has been scaling up along with the rest of the display ad business as it moves into real-time exchanges like Google’s AdX; earlier this year Peer39 said it was analyzing 47 billion pages a month.

This was an inside round from previous investors including Evergreen Venture Partners and Canaan Partners; CEO Andy Ellenthal says he’ll use the money to expand in the U.S. and internationally.

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There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google