• January 5th, 2012

    Google Ventures And Foundry Group Put $9M In Crowdsourced Search Advertising Marketplace Trada

    trada

    Crowdsourced SEM management startup Trada has raised $9 million in Series D financing from existing investors Foundry Group and Google Ventures. This brings Trada’s total funding to $17 million.

    Here’s how Trada works. Agencies and advertisers can specify a budget they are willing to spend on ads, decide which advertising platforms they want their ads to appear on (the site currently supports Bing, Yahoo, and Google), and enter how much they willing to pay-per-click or per acquisition.
    → Read More

    November 18th, 2011

    Here In Silicon Valley, Are We Killing Jobs And Making The Rich Richer?

    Occupy Jobs Sign

    As the Occupy Wall Street movement keeps growing, many of the issues raised by the protestors continue to gain support from the average American. In particular, the erosion of the middle class due to job losses and the increasingly large income gap have become key issues in the 2012 presidential elections.

    At the moment, Wall Street and big corporations are getting the lion’s share of blame for these issues, but the reality is that no single region or industry is solely responsible for our current woes. In fact, we’re all doing our part – including us here in Silicon Valley. → Read More

    November 9th, 2011

    Trada Brings Crowdsourced Advertising Marketplace To Facebook

    trada

    Crowdsourced SEM management startup Trada is released its version of a crowdsourced Facebook advertising marketplace. Trada, which launched in March of 2010, is launching a marketplace that lets advertisers and agencies leverage Facebook ad experts to create campaigns on the social networks.

    Here’s how Trada works. Agencies and advertisers can specify a budget they are willing to spend on ads, decide which advertising platforms they want their ads to appear on (the site currently supports Bing, Yahoo, and Google), and enter how much they willing to pay-per-click or per acquisition. The site then sources the heavy lifting, like choosing thousands of keywords to target and writing ad copy, to its community of SEM experts to build and manage and advertiser or business’ paid search campaign across search engines. Trada coordinates the payments and takes a small cut of each transaction between advertisers and SEO experts. → Read More

    July 21st, 2010

    Trada Raises $5.75M From Google Ventures To Crowdsource Search Engine Marketing

    Google’s AdWords may be one of the most successful products in Internet history, but it’s fair to say that most small and medium-sized business owners aren’t exactly experts when it comes to writing their ad copy or picking out keywords — in fact, there’s a whole industry of consultants and firms who specialize in doing just that. Enter Trada, a startup that launched in March that’s looking to help turn the industry on its head with the power of crowdsourcing. The company just closed a $5.75 million Series C round of funding led by Google Ventures, with participation from previous investor Foundry Group. Google Ventures Partner Rich Miner will be joining the board.  And yes, this means Google’s VC arm is taking a dip into paid search marketing, which is sure to raise a few eyebrows.

    The basic premise of Trada is to make running an online ad campaign as easy as possible: specify a budget you’re willing to spend on ads, decide which advertising platforms you want your ads to appear on (the site currently supports Bing, Yahoo, and Google), and enter how much you’re willing to pay-per-click or per acquisition. Finish those steps and you’re done — the site sources the heavy lifting, like choosing thousands of keywords to target and writing ad copy, to its community of experts. → Read More

    March 18th, 2010

    Trada Raises $2.2 Million For Crowdsourced SEM Management Service

    Stealth startup Trada launched to the public today as an online marketplace allowing small and medium businesses and agencies to essentially crowdsource search engine marketing services. The startup has raised $2.2 million from the Foundry Group and angel investors Alan Warms, Carlos Cashman, Dan Murray, James Crouthamel, Stuart Larkins and Robert Wolfe.

    As we all know, search advertising is necessary for businesses but SEM can be a time consuming, perplexing and tedious task. Many businesses overpay for common keywords or don’t use the right keywords to drive traffic. Trada comes into play here by crowdsourcing SEM experts to build and manage and advertiser or business’ paid search campaign across search engines. The service currently supports Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. → Read More

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    Crunchbase

    Optimizely — Received Series A funding from Battery Ventures, Google Ventures, and InterWest Partners
    5.30.2012
    smartDIGITAL — Company added to CrunchBase
    5.30.2012
    InterWest Partners — Invested in Optimizely.
    5.30.2012
    Compliance11 — Acquired by Compliance11, Inc..
    11.15.2012
    Facebook — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:FB.
    5.18.2012
    Compliance11 — Acquired by Compliance11, Inc..
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    Bolt | Peters — Acquired by Facebook for $50M.
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    Actual Systems — Acquired by Solera Holdings.
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    ServerOrigin — Acquired by Black Lotus.
    5.29.2012
    Optimizely — Received Series A funding from Battery Ventures, Google Ventures, and InterWest Partners
    5.30.2012
    Draker — Received $475k in Debt funding
    5.30.2012
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    smartDIGITAL — Received $2.7M in Series A funding from Advantage Capital Partners
    5.30.2012
    AudioCure Pharma — Received Seed funding from High-Tech Gruenderfonds and Dr. Schumacher
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    InterWest Partners — Invested in Optimizely.
    5.30.2012
    Google Ventures — Invested in Optimizely.
    5.30.2012
    Battery Ventures — Invested in Optimizely.
    5.30.2012
    InterWest Partners — Invested in Badgeville.
    5.30.2012
    El Dorado Ventures — Invested in Badgeville.
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    Facebook — Went public with stock symbol NASDAQ:FB.
    5.18.2012
    smartDIGITAL — Company added to CrunchBase
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    Smotri.com — Company added to CrunchBase
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    Mail.ru Video — Company added to CrunchBase
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