YD Secures EUR 4.6 million in Growth Capital Financing to Accelerate Rapid Expansion

Frankfurt, 16 September 2013. YD, the disruptive performance display advertising technology and services company, announced today that it has secured EUR 4.6m in venture capital funding. The multi-million Euro investment will bring the company’s programmatic advertising solution to more direct advertisers by up-scaling its international sales team and further strengthening its technical development power.

2013_09_yd_PartechPartech Ventures Berlin led YD’s Series A funding together with Active Venture Partners, financial advice from Corporate Finance Partners (CFP) – now ACXIT Capital Partners – and legal advice from Jones Day and Lexence.

Until now, YD has been entirely self-funded with help of the business angel investor Toharu Ventures. The company now intends to accelerate its growth worldwide and further consolidate its position as a disruptive force within programmatic advertising, which is the most rapidly growing part of the digital advertising industry.

YD was founded in 2008 as one of the first display advertising companies delivering performance directly to brands. Evolving from an operator of multiple third-party solutions, YD has developed its own proven proprietary in-house programmatic advertising platform ‘Impulse’ which taps into the trend for big data decision making being embraced by global brands.

Impulse is one of the first platforms to offer programmatic advertising buying transparency directly to brand marketers for a single fee. Working directly with over 100 e-commerce brands in the European market including Citibank, Liberty Seguros, and Teufel Audio, YD’s technology facilitates board-level decisions such as allocating programmatic marketing investments in real time.

A growing number of advertisers wish to directly integrate their programmatic advertising solutions into their digital revenue streams as a means of combating the lack of transparency in agency services and media fees and YD, which has adopted an industry leadership position on this issue, is growing as a company at a remarkable rate as a result.

Recent company growth highlights and awards include:

  • YD was listed in the Red Herring 100 Awards as one of Europe’s most promising companies
  • YD was listed in the Deloitte Fast 50 of most rapidly growing technology companies in the Netherlands and Belgium
  • Between 2008 and 2012, YD has experienced 900%+ growth
  • YD is particularly strong in the aviation and telecommunications industries. Working directly with airlines such as Air France-KLM, Transavia, LAN Airlines, Air Berlin, Air Transat and Icelandair and major telecommunications companies including T-Mobile, Telekom Deutschland and UPC, YD assists these organizations to successfully integrate big data directly into their marketing decisions
  • YD will have a strong presence at DMEXCO 2013

“YD’s partnership with Partech and Active VP opens up a great new network for us to expand our company at a faster rate in our existing markets and in new regions to further consolidate our solid position within the global digital landscape. We are proud to run YD with this great team of forward-thinking VCs who share our vision for the future of brand direct digital advertising.”

– Mendel Senf, CEO YD

“As one of the earliest disruptive display advertising leaders in Europe, YD has proven a great success in the last few years and we welcome the opportunity of playing a part in further expanding the company’s technology and services. As lead investor we look forward to working with Active VP as co-investor and partnering with YD’s ambitious management team. YD’s rapid growth shows that the programmatic buying space is led by pure technology companies and ad-exchange specialists.”

– Gabriel Matuschka, Principal Partech Ventures

“Together with Partech we have invested in YD, because we are impressed by the team’s holistic approach to performance advertising and the way in which the company helps advertisers dramatically improve media spending yields.”

– Philipp Schroeder, Active Venture Partners

“In the upcoming periods, the marketing industry will be further revolutionized by programmatic trading via real-time bidding (RTB) and a direct integration of sales and marketing departments under one roof. YD Group already proved to be a clear innovative leader in this field. The funding from Partech International and Active Venture Partners will allow the company to grow significantly in important international markets.”

– Berend Yntema, Managing Director Corporate Finance Partners

Corporate Finance Partners – now ACXIT Capital Partners – acted as exclusive financial adviser to YD Group B.V.

About YD

YD delivers performance display advertising on scale. YD’s proprietary programmatic buying platform Impulse unlocks the power of real time bidding and allows advertisers to show personalized ads only to new and existing interested customers. Price, placement and content are determined in real time, which results in smarter decisions and a considerable boost to advertiser sales. YD’s technology is solely built for direct advertisers and delivers full transparency in combination with full performance. YD was founded by ad men, engineers and computer scientists in 2008. YD currently employs over 60 people and works from 5 offices worldwide. (www.ydworld.com)

About Partech

Partech is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, Paris and Berlin. Started in 1982, Partech is a partnership with USD 650m under active management. Its mission is to help outstanding entrepreneurs to succeed in a global economy. The firm looks for companies with a substantial technology or innovation leverage in internet and information technology. Partech manages seed and venture funds, allowing the firm to invest from USD 250,000 to USD 10m in the early institutional rounds of high growth companies. (www.partechventures.com

About Active Venture Partners

Active Venture Partners  provides companies with capital and also supports them with strategic and operational advice, experience, and access to their international network of contacts. Active has strong connections to local and international technology companies, high profile industry experts and a network of collaborating individual and institutional co-investors. Active Venture Partners creates an environment in which entrepreneurs can develop and succeed faster and to a greater extent than their competitors. Active Venture Partners takes a proactive and hands-on role in advising its portfolio companies and works with them and for them towards a common goal. (www.active-vp.com)

About Toharu Ventures

Toharu Ventures  is a hands-on early stage investor. Toharu Ventures actively supports the entrepreneurs and/or founders to lead them through their first crucial growth phases. The goal is to build ventures with a solid basis for further expansion. Toharu Ventures has a proven track record in the mobile and advertising technology sector, but does not have a strict sector focus. (www.toharu-ventures.com)

About ACXIT

ACXIT Capital Partners is a leading independent corporate finance and investment advisory firm for mid-market clients and entrepreneurs in Europe and beyond. Since 1998, ACXIT offers its clients comprehensive corporate finance advisory services including M&A and capital markets advisory as well as restructuring, equity/debt and strategic advisory. As an independent, privately owned firm we maintain offices and representations in Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Zurich, Hong Kong and New York, as well as strong alliances in France, China and India. (www.acxit.com)

 

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