Fully-Automated Ad Management Startup Multichannel Raises $3M In Seed Funding

Multichannel wants to help marketers fully automate their online advertising so they can focus on developing campaigns instead of staring at software dashboards all day. Based in Hong Kong and the U.S., Multichannel has raised $3 million in seed funding from investors including founder Dmitry Fedotov, the Hong Kong Government, angel investor Kevin Ng and a venture capital firm that wants to remain undisclosed.

The company will use its new capital to speed up the development of its automated marketing platform, which it describes as “Rocket Fuel on steroids.” Multichannel’s cloud-based software uses algorithms to manage online advertising campaigns across different channels and search engines like Google, Yahoo or Baidu.

To use Multichannel’s platform, companies first add each of their advertising channels to the dashboard. The software looks at data from the company’s past and present advertising campaigns to give recommendations on which regions to place ads. Its bid management system automatically manages rates for different keywords and guards against “click fraud,” which unscrupulous advertising channels use to artificially inflate rates.

Multichannel says the advantages of its platform over other ad management products include lower costs for companies, less administrative tasks and potential “unlimited scalability” into advertising channels across the world regardless of language, currency or local regulations (target users include companies seeking to advertise in China).