Searchandise Commerce Raises $7 Million From Madrona Venture Group And Others

Searchandise Commerce, an online media network for product manufacturers and their retail channel partners, this morning announced it has scored $7 million in venture capital funding.

This second financing round for the company (it had earlier raised $7.5 million) was led by new investor Madrona Venture Group and joined by prior backers Cloquet Capital Partners, DFJ Gotham Partners, Draper Associates, Inflection Point Ventures, Milestone Venture Partners and Wheatley Partners.

The company says the capital will be used primarily to expand its sales/marketing and operations teams.

Searchandise Commerce provides a service the combines paid search with traditional in-store merchandising practices. The service essentially aims to enable retailers to monetize every visitor that comes to their site, not just those who transact. Manufacturers and their ad agencies can tap Searchandise to place CPC bids on products to positively affect visibility across its network of retail and comparison shopping sites.

The investment of Madrona in Searchandise was led by Brian McAndrews, who joined the VC firm in August 2009 as Managing Director, after spending eight years as CEO of digital marketing company aQuantive (formerly AvenueA) and as senior VP at Microsoft, leading its Advertising and Publisher Solutions group.

McAndrews has now joined the Searchandise Commerce Board of Directors.