Perfect Market, which markets solutions aimed to assist publishers in growing revenue from their online content, has secured $6 million in a Series C funding round led by Tribune Company.
Just to be clear, that’s the media giant that owns newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune alongside a number of television and radio stations and a range of online properties.
Perfect Market says it will use the funds to expand its efforts to market and deploy its solution to publishers of newspapers, magazines and websites.
Existing investors Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners and Idealab also participated in this round. The company’s initial financing round totaled $15.6 million and was closed in July 2008. I failed to find out when or how big the Series B round was.
Frankly, I’m also having a tough time figuring out what the company offers exactly, but here’s the pitch from their website:
Our proprietary technology solution better fulfills the needs of intent users – people who arrive at their sites through keyword searches seeking specific information – with exactly what they’re looking for in our customers’ online content. Optimized content with relevant ads generates higher click-through rates for advertisers, and dramatically more revenue for publishers and their ad network partners.
Sounds like they’re up against Google and a plethora of other companies in this field.
Tribune Company has apparently been using the solutions developed by Perfect Market, which was incubated by Idealab, on several of its web properties in 2009. Clearly, the media company appears to believe in the startup’s potential to compete in a crowded market: aside from the investment, Dan Kazan, Tribune’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, has joined the company’s Board of Directors.