Last night Boston-based Visible Measures submitted their Form D to the SEC, announcing a $7.7 million round of financing. According to the people listed in the filing report, previous investors General Catalyst and Mohr Davidow Ventures as well as angel investor Kurt Abrahamson (CEO at socialmedia.com, a next-gen “people powered” ad platform) contributed.
We reached out to learn more about what Visible Measures plans to do with the financing, but the company cannot yet comment on it. We have a hunch it has to do with their recently launched video ad network — Viewable Media. This is a first-of-its kind ad network that allows advertisers to buy user-initiated views in social videos. Meaning, the audience is choosing when to watch ads as opposed to being forced to watch something pre-roll.
Founded in 2005 by serial entrepreneur Brian Shin, Visible Measures’ roots are firmly in analytics. Christopher Gillett, Compete.com’s chief software architect for five years has been leading Visible Measures in a similar role. In fact David Cancel, Compete’s founder who is currently building analytics company Performable, is on their advisory board — along with big names like Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop and former chief evangelist at Apple. Visible Measures has been a pioneer in the area of video analytics, acting as a third-party serving both advertisers and publishers. They provide statistics and measurement that includes reach data, viewer engagement, and much more.
Another example of their offerings: A consumer brand preference metric called Share of Choice, released this past November. This measurement solution targets brands, providing one simple metric that indicates how often consumers choose to watch the brand in video over other brands in the same sector or industry.
2010 was by all accounts a huge year for online video, with brands finally leveraging and recognizing its power (just take the Old Spice campaign as one example). Visible Measures is providing the ROI tools that publishers, brands and advertisers need to drive more video content online – increasingly important as the Internet TV revolution gains momentum. We look forward to following their development in the coming years.
Visible Measures has raised $37M to date, included an $800k seed round from Dharmesh Shah and others in 2006, a $5M Series A led by General Catalyst in 2007, a $13.5M Series B in 2008 from General Catalyst and Mohr Davidow Ventures, and a $10M Series C in 2009 with Northgate Capital joining in the round with General Catalyst and Mohr Davidow. The company recently relocated its offices with more space from Cambridge to downtown Boston.
