Data is the lifeblood of the Web, but when it comes to advertising some of the most valuable data ends up all over the place. New York City startup Demdex captures behavioral data on behalf of Websites and advertisers and stores it in a “behavioral data bank.” The 14-employee company just raised $6 million in a series A financing, led by Shasta Ventures. Seed round investors First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures also participated, bringing the total capital raised by the startup so far to $7.5 million.
Here’s how I described what the company does when it came out of stealth last December:
They put all of this user profile data into a “behavioral data bank” and then score each user across more than 40 behavioral and demographic variables to come up with a “traitweight.” This number is supposed to be able to help websites segment their audiences better and advertisers target their messages more exactly.
. . . All of this behavioral data is currently locked away in black boxes inaccessible to the advertisers themselves or the Websites. If a big advertiser decides to switch technologies or ad networks, all that historical behavioral targeting data typically gets left behind. DemDex makes the data portable and puts it in the control of the Websites and advertisers themselves. They can plug it into whichever ad server or service they are currently using.
Demdex wants to cash in on giving control of that behavioral data back to the advertisers and publishers on whose behalf it was originally collected.
Shasta Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on companies in the consumer Internet, mobile and software sectors. Shasta was formed in 2004 to back brilliant entrepreneurs with an unwavering commitment to the customer experience. Located in Menlo Park, California, Shasta Ventures has $725 million dollars under management across three funds. Shasta Ventures has backed startups including Apptio, Lithium, Mint, Nest, Smule, Spiceworks, TaskRabbit, Turn, Zenprise and Zuora.
First Round Capital is a venture capital firm that primarily makes early round investments. They look to play an active role in the operations of most the companies they invest in.
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