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    4Mads, An Adtech Startup For DIY Web And Mobile Ads, Acquired By InSequent

    Sarah Perez

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    Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to becoming a professional blogger, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. → Learn More

    Friday, November 9th, 2012
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    4Mads, a small, San Francisco-based adtech startup launched at the beginning of the year, has been acquired by mobile marketer InSequent, whose main product involves the creation of instant mobile websites from existing desktop versions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but 4Mads had previously raised over $1 million in funding from angel investors including Roger Lang, Andy Laursen, David Roux, Jon Staenberg and others.

    The company also had over 3,000 customers, and was set to hit profitability in December.

    With the acquisition, InSequent will now add display advertising to their marketing suite which, in addition to the desktop-to-mobile site conversions, also includes short codes, QR codes, and SMS marketing tools. The two companies will remain separated until next year, but InSequent will offer the advertising platform to users who create mobile sites.

    Previously, 4Mads had targeted small-to-medium sized businesses, who couldn’t afford to hire an ad agency to design their mobile and web advertisements. 4Mads offered an alternative solution, with a DIY toolkit and set of tutorials that allowed these business owners to make their own advertisements. The company claimed it took only 10 minutes or less to build ads on its platform, which also offered over 100 animation effects in both Flash and HTML5, allowing its ads to work on both web and mobile.

    InSequent, founded in late 2009 by Mark Porter, has partnerships with McClatchy, Digital First Media, Halifax Media Group (formerly the NY Times group), Morris, Deseret, Zenergy, Evening Post Interactive, Guarantee Digital and others. The company is backed by OpenAir Equity Partners and angels including Richard Chino and Jason Fairchild.

    4Mads CEO Alfredo Guilbert is joining InSequent as a board member, following the acquisition, and the creatives supporting the small and medium business platform are going to Insequent as well. Guilbert, however, is keeping the development team and the core technology, which is being spun off into a new company which will have news soon.

    Crunchbase

    Company: 4Mads
    Website: 4mads.com
    Launch Date: 2011

    4Mads is an advertising platform – the first self-service solution for advertising professionals to create rich media ads compatible for mobile and web platforms. 4Mads makes it possible for small and medium-sized businesses to do sophisticated advertising.

    → Learn more
    Company: InSequent
    Website: insequent.com
    Launch Date: October 1, 2009

    InSequent’s mobile marketing platform instantly converts a desktop site to a mobile-optimized site. We also provide customer acquisition tools including mobile keywords, short codes, QR Codes and a full SMS suite. The platform is simple to use, powerful and designed for local business. It is available in white label and in use by such industry standouts as McClatchy, Digital First Media, Halifax Media Group (formerly NYT), Morris and many others.

    → Learn more
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