AdsNative, a startup that helps online publishers incorporate native ads, is announcing that it has raised $2 million in seed funding.
The company also says that it’s expanding its technology to include a supply-side platform. In other words, instead of just focusing on native ads (such as sponsored posts) that publishers sell directly, AdsNative is also helping publishers work with native ad networks and exchanges.
Co-founder and CEO Satish Polisetti told me that we’re still in “the first innings” of the shift toward native ads, with many “direct, handheld deals.” The next step has been the creation of native ad networks, and of demand-side platforms that work with advertisers — but Polisetti said that until now, there hasn’t been anything on the publisher side, allowing them to manage all their inventory in a way that maximizes their fill rate and revenue.
The goal, he added, is to “give the capability of Facebook-style advertising or Twitter-style advertising to the next generation.”
AdsNative’s seed round was led by Interwest Partners, with participation from Onset Ventures, the Foundry Group Angels syndicate on AngelList, KBS+ Ventures, and various angel investors, including InterClick’s Barry Honig, former Yahoo vice president Mike Kerns, and MdotM CEO Sourabh Niyogi.
AdsNative publishers include Politico, SourceForge and Rant Media Network. The company says it processes hundreds of millions of ads each month.
“We’re continuously approached by native ad networks to place their ads on our pages,” said Rant Media’s chief revenue officer Grant Brown in the funding release. “In an effort to maximize revenue and fill, we’ve turned to AdsNative to optimize fill and eCPM. Plus the ability to layer in a native marketplace and ease of executing direct buys through their platform gives us the best ability to maximize our potential revenue.”