AdStage, a startup that helps businesses run ad campaigns across platforms like Google and Facebook, announced today that it has raised an additional $1.5 million in debt funding.
The funding comes from Silicon Valley Bank and follows a $6.25 million equity round last year. Co-founder and CEO Sahil Jain said the “vast majority” of that money is still in the bank, but he said the debt serves as “a very nice insurance policy,” especially if he wants to stay competitive as the ad tech industry becomes increasingly “frothy.”
Specifically, Jain said that if the opportunity arises, the money could help AdStage hire more aggressively or make a small acquisition.
“If I want to hire five engineers in a week … on top of the 20 people that we’ve now grown to, that would eat away at [the Series A] money very very quickly,” he said.
The company says it’s currently used by more than 4,000 mid-market agencies and advertisers. It also fully removed the beta testing label from its product.
In addition to Google’s AdWords and Facebook, AdStage supports Bing, LinkedIn and Twitter. In fact, it’s part of the initial lineup of Twitter’s just-announced Official Partner Program.
“We believe the advertiser is going to be the center of the marketing universe,” Jain said. His goal is to build a platform to support advertisers as their importance grows.
That also means providing advertisers with more data, and with that in mind, AdStage is launched its integration with Google Analytics today, allowing advertisers to create custom reports with details about which campaigns are and aren’t paying off. The company says it’s already working on more data integrations, including with Google Merchant Center.