Social Retargeting Ad Network RadiumOne Raising A $50M Round At A $500M Valuation

We’re hearing that RadiumOne, an online ad network that aims to combine social and intent data to serve ads, is finalizing a monster $50 million round from investors. While the funding isn’t closed yet, we’ve heard from industry sources that the valuation is hovering around $500 million pre-money.

RadiumOne, which has raised $33.5 million to date, mines social data and uses this information to identify relevant consumers for brands. The startup analyzes how users interact with one another on social networks to find the consumers that identify with a brand’s current customer base, and then serves advertisements to this audience across the company’s network of publishers.

RadiumOne gets this data directly from social networks (which sell anonymous user behavior data to advertisers), its own gWallet offer platform, blogging platforms, microblogging platforms (i.e. Twitter), URL shorteners, photosharing websites and other applications, including its own consumer apps (group messaging app Ping.me and Via.Me). As social media users share information like links, blog posts, videos and more, RadiumOne analyzes this data to place the consumers on a social graph that will accurately describe their “behavior”.

Yesterday, the company debuted Via.Me, an iOS app that allows you to capture, filter, and share pictures, images, videos, audio and other content across multiple social networks.

The company was founded by serial entrepreneur and gWallet founder Gurbaksh Chahal. Chahal sold his ad network BlueLithium to Yahoo for $300 million in 2007 and at the time, Chahal’s company was the fifth largest ad network in the United States and the second largest in the United Kingdom. Chahal’s non-compete contract with Yahoo ended in October 2010, and he got back into the online ad business with RadiumOne.

We’re hearing that the company is on track to surpass $100 million in revenue this year. And clearly the company’s valuation has increased since its last round in 2011, which pegged the company at $200 million. Stay tuned.