Chango Raises $4.25M To Bring Search Targeting To Display Ads

Toronto-based ad targeting startup Chango has raised $4.25 million in new funding led by Rho Canada, with iNovia Capital, Metamorphic Ventures, Extreme Venture Partners and 24/7 Media co-founder, Geoff Judge; participating in the round. This brings Chango’s total funding to nearly $6 million.

Founded by Chris Sukornyk, Chango is an ad platform that targets display ads based on people’s previous search history. Unlike other ad retargeters who show ads to people based on the fact that they have visited a particular Website, Chango targets ads based on the searches those people have done in the past.

How does Chango accomplish this? The startup buys browser cookie data from data exchanges, toolbar companies, and vertical comparison shopping sites. When you click through to a site from a search engine, that site captures the referral data, along with the search terms that brought you there. Sites often resell this data along with identifying cookies. When you show up at a site with Chango ads, it matches the cookie on your browser with what it knows about your search history and tries to serve up relevant display ads.

Sukornyk is a serial entrepreneur, previously co-founding the X-Stream Network (a free ISP in Europe sold to LibertySurf for $75 million), Bubbleshare (photo-sharing site sold to Kaboose for a couple million dollars, and then deadpooled), and FiveLimes (a green shopping site sold to Avid Life Media, which now appears to be defunct).