BlackArrow Raises $20 Million For On-Demand TV Advertising

TV advertising doesn’t have to be just on TV. That’s the premise behind BlackArrow, a startup that caters to the cable industry by offering a way to place ads on broadband Web video, on-demand TV, and digital-video recorders (with unskippable ads). The company is announcing a new $20 million round of funding from existing investors Cisco Systems., Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital, Mayfield Fund and Polaris Venture Partners.

BlackArrow lets cable companies and TV networks show the same ads on the Web and on other platforms as they do on TV, making it easier to do bundled sales. The company’s technology also provides a central place to manage and track all the ads, whether they run on a TV network’s own site, are syndicated to other sites, or run on a set-top box.