UK-based VC firm Arts Alliance is investing in Kenshoo which automates search engine marketing automated technologies. AA joins US VC firm Sequoia Capital which invested in Kenshoo in December 2007 (terms were not disclosed then either). The deal is AA’s first into the SEO arena. The cash will see them market further into Europe.
Kenshoo is an Israel-based company with an “end-to-end” SEM product which automates the creation and management of labour intensive search marketing campaigns. Cynics might call it a spam engine, but I’m sure it’s not that. The idea is that you set the Kenshoo attack dog running, freeing you up to focus on traffic, raising conversion rates and improving ROI.
Kenshoo competes with bid-management software from all the giants in online advertising (DoubleClick, aQuantive’s Atlas Solutions, and Omniture), but it goes a step beyond that to look at the quality of the campagns. This is bad news for snake-oil search-engine marketing consultants, which surely can’t be a bad thing?