AdOutlet.com Secures $25 Million Investment

Online advertising marketplace AdOutlet.com on Wednesday snapped up $25
million in new financing led by DLJ’s (DLJ)venture capital arm, The Sprout Group.

The company says it’s using the dough to fuel ongoing operations, improve its technology, and staff up. Mergers and acquisitions may also be in the works, says AdOutlet.com chief executive officer Alan Masarek, and the moeny would help the company put those kinds of deals together.

The new money is another sign of the increasing action in the online
advertising marketplace space. A group of advertising veterans, with
backing from McCann-Erickson
Worldgroup, recently announced plans to form a new advertising
exchange, Media Market
Makers. In February AdFlight.com
rounded up $8.25 million in new financing for its online advertising site.
And AdAuction.com is beefing up its
staff in an effort to expand its offerings beyond remnant ad space in
online and outdoor media.

So far, usage by those looking to buy and sell Internet advertising has
been the strongest, but AdOutlet.com and others hope that media buyers and
sellers in TV, radio, print, and outdoor will come to do more business
online as they get more familiar with the medium.

“With the proliferation of media occurring in the advertising industry
today, advertisers have a limited window of opportunity to be in the right
place, with the right message, for the right person,” said Rakesh Sood,
general partner at the Sprout Group.

“AdOutlet.com provides e-solutions that effectively bring this fragmented
industry together by aggregating all forms of media on one platform.”

Besides the Sprout Group, other investors in AdOutlet.com include FrontLine
Capital and LiveWire Ventures, LLC.

Currently, the site serves more than 6,000 registered media buyers and 350 media suppliers.