PlaceIQ rounded up Internet Week with a bang! Fresh off our Series B, the launch of the tremendously successful Place Visit Rate™, and the addition of some key new hires, PlaceIQ held something of a “momentum” party to celebrate. After a full day of torrential rain, the skies parted and gave way to an epic evening. Our very own PlaceIQ led band put on a stellar performance and everyone in attendance did their part to make the night a memorable one.
Thanks to everyone who came – and to those who did not – contact us to make sure your included in the next one! Pics from the photo booth and photographer will be up shortly, but here’s a sneak preview to get you through the holiday weekend!
See you next time!
PlaceIQ Raises $6.75 Million in Series B Financing Led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP).
PlaceIQ Raises $6.75 Million in Series B Financing Led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP). Mobile Location Intelligence Pioneer to Expand Reach and Service Offerings
NEW YORK, NY, May 7, 2013 PlaceIQ (http://www.PlaceIQ.com), a leading provider of location intelligence solutions for marketers, today announced the company has raised $6.75 million in a Series B financing round led by U.S. Venture Partners, and including IA Ventures, Valhalla Partners, kbs+ Ventures, and several prominent angel investors.
PlaceIQ will use the funding to further its lead as the premier location intelligence solution for marketers, and to meet the groundswell of demand for more accurate solutions that enable advertisers to reach and define mobile brand audiences at scale across a wide range of marketing activities.
“As pioneers in the space, we’ve seen first hand how location intelligence is transforming the way marketing budgets are being allocated,” said Duncan McCall, CEO & Co-Founder of PlaceIQ. “ In the past year, we’ve witnessed explosive growth in demand from both our channel partners as well as agencies and brands directly. Clearly, marketers are becoming more sophisticated and getting more and more comfortable with adding location based audiences into their marketing mix. We will be using this additional funding to cement our leadership positioning in the space, ensuring that we are able to continue to bring market defining products and measures – such as the Place Visit Rate™ to our clients.”
“Location is the critical component that allows marketers to spend their mobile marketing dollars effectively,” noted John Hadl, Venture Partner at USVP and founder of groundbreaking mobile advertising agency Brand in Hand. “PlaceIQ provides unequalled insight into this vast opportunity with its accurate and precise measures, all powered by proprietary, patent-pending solutions that have set a standard for tools that help marketers better understand how to reach and message mobile audiences. Given the opportunity here, we are excited to be leading this critical round and enabling PlaceIQ to continue to do the important, industry defining work that has been its hallmark to date.”
The several months leading up to closing of this round has seen PlaceIQ take numerous steps towards cementing its leadership position in the marketplace. These include the hiring of industry veterans Tony Nethercutt as Chief Revenue Office and Anna Nguyen as Chief Operating Officer, significant increases to its engineer staff to accommodate product demand, the announcement of the industry defining Place Visit Rate™ (PVR™) metric, as well as a strategic partnership with Starcom MediaVest Group.
“Mobile’s power and possibilities lie in its ability to harness data and deliver human experiences that are relevant and meaningful,” says Derek Thompson, Senior Vice President & Global Mobility Director at Starcom MediaVest Group. “Location science is an integral component of unleashing mobile’s potential and we are excited about our work with PlaceIQ in this space and the measurable impact we are generating for our clients.”
PlaceIQ will use the funding from this round to maintain its pace of growth, continue to expand its offering, and hire for additional positions in sales, operations, marketing, and engineering. Interested candidates should visit http://www.placeiq.com/jobs/.
For more information about Place Visit Rate™ (PVR™), PlaceIQ’s groundbreaking new success metric created that measure real-world, in-store ROI visit http://www.placeiq.com/products/pvr/
About PlaceIQ
PlaceIQ (http://www.PlaceIQ.com) is a leading provider of location intelligence, enabling advertisers to reach and define mobile brand audiences at scale for a wide range of marketing activities. Working with agencies, brands, and channel partners, PlaceIQ deploys proprietary, patent-pending big data science to aggregate and analyze extensive amounts of location data from multiple sources. The resulting intelligence gives marketers an unprecedented understanding of consumer behavior, while offering a privacy-friendly way to define, locate, reach and measure mobile audiences. The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boulder, Colorado.
About U.S. Venture Partners
U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is a leading Silicon valley-based venture capital firm, helping entrepreneurs build world-class companies since 1981. USVP focuses on early stage opportunities in sectors where the Partners have the domain expertise, operating experience and network relationships to contribute to the success of an enterprise. Currently, the firm invests in digital communications, network systems, consumer and business services, media, semiconductors, clean technologies, biopharmaceuticals and medical devices.
About IA Ventures
IA Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm, based in NYC, that invests in companies creating competitive advantage through data. We focus on using the latest technology to manage and extract value from today’s massive, occasionally unstructured, often real-time datasets.
About Valhalla Partners
Valhalla Partners is a trusted partner and advisor to technology entrepreneurs in their quest to build world-class companies. Based in Vienna, Virginia, the firm’s management team has made more than 120 investments over the past twenty years and produced almost $1 billion of investment proceeds. Valhalla prefers investments where the mission of the company is to innovate, challenge, and fundamentally change the dynamics of new and existing markets. Investments by Valhalla’s team include Adaptly, Advertising.com, Vubiquity, JumpTap, LeftHand Networks, PlaceIQ, Progress Software, Proxicom, Qumulo, RealOps, Register.com, Riverbed Technologies, SafeNet, ServiceBench, SolidFire, Videology, Trilogy, and webMethods. Valhalla Partners brings the full power and network of its experienced team to every investment it makes, helping companies grow faster and smarter regardless of size or maturity. For more information visit http://www.ValhallaPartners.com or follow via Twitter @ValhallaVC.
About KBS+ Ventures
kbs+ Ventures is a thematic investment arm of kirshenbaum bond senecal and partners which backs early stage entrepreneurs who have solid teams and great ideas. The main investment areas that kbs+ Ventures focuses on are: ad technologies, mobile, and design infusion. For more information, please visit: http://www.kbsp.vc
Neu Venture Capital
Neu Venture Capital is a New York-based seed fund run by Jerry Neumann. For more information please visit: http://neuvc.com
Organizations partner to bring more mobile solutions to market
[NEW YORK, April 4, 2013] Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) and PlaceIQ announced today the launch of a new mobile solution that will help SMG clients to measure the effectiveness of mobile advertising. Known as Place Visit Rate™, this is the first offering from a new strategic partnership between SMG and PlaceIQ to bring best-in-class mobile solutions to SMG clients.
Place Visit Rate™ refers to the ratio of people who view mobile advertising for a physical retailer and subsequently are observed in that store.
Place Visit Rate™ (PVR™) is a unique KPI in that it not only measures the effectiveness of mobile advertising’s ability to drive in-store traffic, but also gives marketers the ability to optimize towards it. Starcom MediaVest Group and PlaceIQ developed PVR™ as a key performance indicator during a recent campaign for a leading brand. The breakthrough mobile campaign and KPI was successful in proving that contextually relevant, location-based messaging, was successful in driving increased store traffic.
“Mobile’s true potential relies on the ability to harness data and connect with consumers at the right place and the right time with the right message to drive a specific action,” says Derek Thompson, Senior Vice President & Global Mobility Director at Starcom MediaVest Group. “We are very excited about our ground-breaking work with PlaceIQ and the measurable impact we are generating for our clients.”
By partnering together, Starcom MediaVest Group and PlaceIQ are able to combine the best thinking in technology and human experience to innovate and solve some of the most pressing issues concerning today’s leading brands.
As a company that pioneered the application of location intelligence to mobile marketing, PlaceIQ continues to lead by innovation in mobile audience science. They have built a suite of solutions designed to help marketers identify, engage and learn more about key audience segments as they move throughout the physical world.
“We developed PVR™ because we saw an area of mobile that was lacking: providing a clear way of measuring and impacting the success of a brand driving consumers into their stores via mobile advertising,” says Duncan McCall, CEO & Co-founder of PlaceIQ. “Our DNA is very much about innovating on behalf of our clients. When Starcom MediaVest Group came to us for this collaboration, we knew it was time to roll up our sleeves and create a solution that would help the entire industry understand real-world, measurable ROI.”
About Starcom MediaVest Group
Starcom MediaVest Group is the Human Experience Company. We grow our clients’ business by transforming human behavior through uplifting, meaningful human experiences. These brand ‘experiences’ are brought to life by SMG’s three global agency brands: MediaVest, Starcom, and Spark. Ranked one of the largest brand communications groups in the world, Starcom MediaVest Group (www.smvgroup.com) encompasses an integrated network of human experience strategists, investment specialists, content creators and digital experts. With nearly 6,500 employees in 110 offices worldwide, SMG partners with the world’s leading companies including The Coca-Cola Company, Kraft Foods, P&G, Samsung, Walmart, among others. In 2010, Adweek named SMG “Media Agency of the Decade.”
SMG is part of Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris: FR0000130577], the world’s third largest communications group. Publicis Groupe is also ranked as the world’s second largest media counsel and buying group and is the first global network in digital and healthcare communications. Website: www.publicisgroupe.com
About PlaceIQ
PlaceIQ (www.PlaceIQ.com) is a leading provider of location intelligence, enabling advertisers to reach and define mobile brand audiences at scale for a wide range of marketing activities. Working with agencies, brands, and channel partners, PlaceIQ deploys proprietary, patent-pending big data science to aggregate and analyze extensive amounts of location data from multiple sources. The resulting intelligence gives marketers an unprecedented understanding of consumer behavior, while offering a privacy-friendly way to define, locate, reach and measure mobile audiences. Founded in 2010, the company has offices in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Boulder, Colorado.
With Spring upon us, signifying a time of rebirth, rejuvenation and regrowth, we at PlaceIQ are experiencing much of the same. As pioneers and leaders in mobile location intelligence, the idea of constant evolution and change is baked into our philosophy. We pride ourselves on never staying complacent, and always trying to push the needle and develop tools, approaches and advancements that move forward the goals of our clients.
We have a slew of exciting updates in our 2013 pipeline, including a number of new offerings produced or being developed that we are strategically rolling out over the next few months.
Today, I’m here to let you in on our latest that we are very bullish on, and that’s Place Visit Rate™.
Place Visit Rate™ aka PVR™, is a revolutionary new patent-pending mobile KPI that not only measures the effectiveness of mobile advertising’s ability to drive in-store traffic, but also gives marketers the ability to optimize towards it.
Place Visit Rate™ defined: The ratio of people who viewed mobile ads for a physical retailer and subsequently were observed in that store.
We developed this new KPI because we saw the need for mobile marketers to, for the first time, actually verify real-world, measureable ROI. We proved Place Visit Rate™ in a holiday campaign we ran for a leading brand. The results of which were quite impressive. The metric was validated through a traditional A/B test (PIQ targeted ads) and control (no ad shown) model that demonstrated that users shown brand specific targeted mobile ads were more likely to visit that brand’s store. We also showed that those consumers who clicked on our client’s ad were more likely to visit its stores than users simply exposed to the ad. In short, creative (and engagement) matters!
Place Visit Rate™ and the tools we use to measure it can also reveal a tremendous amount of valuable intelligence for marketers. We have tested ads targeted to specific competitive retailers, (conquesting) via our proprietary “polygoning” methodology, as well as ads targeted to audiences. We also proved that unlike CTR, PVR™ is improved by frequency! The limits of this capability are truly extensive and we believe this will change the way the industry looks at and values mobile.
Spring, regrowth, it’s palpable and we’re literally seeing it as our team has expanded from 16 to 36 in the last three months. There is certainly a lot to be excited about. I’m pleased to be able to reveal this new KPI with you (see the Ad Age article, read about it on our website), but this is just one of many announcements we have planned for the year. Stay tuned.
Combines with Vistar Media (Ad Serving) Partnership to Produce Tool to Help Marketers More Effectively Reach Consumers On-the-Go
NEW YORK, [2/27/13]—Spafax Networks announced today it has reached an agreement to integrate PlaceIQ’s audience intelligence platform into the SN: Xchange for real-time serving and reporting of ads running on digital place-based media networks. Combined with its previously announced partnership with Vistar Media’s ad serving platform, SN: Xchange now offers marketers a single, comprehensive solution to effectively reach on-the-go consumers
PlaceIQ ingests a multitude of geo-encoded data sources to infer audience, context and intent, broken down by time and day, enabling marketers to identify their target consumers as they move around their physical worlds. PlaceIQ accounts for different moments in the consumer’s life, enabling them to measure, optimize and deliver the right advertising message at the right time.
“The integration of PlaceIQ into SN: Xchange gives us a third component of Intelligent Inventory that rounds out our solution for advertisers looking to reach today’s on-the-go consumer,” said Patrick Bonomo, executive vice president, Spafax Networks. “With PlaceIQ, we have added a filter that enables us to ascribe likely consumer behavior to our intelligent media inventory.”
“We are excited to be partnering with such a forward-thinking company as Spafax Networks,” said Duncan McCall, PlaceIQ CEO and co-founder. “What we’ve built is an audience intelligence platform, based on vast amounts of location data, that allows for an unparalleled understanding of consumer behavior. We believe these capabilities, combined with the incredible inventory of the SN: Xchange, allows advertisers access to the most powerful and intelligent targeting solution on the market.”
About PlaceIQ
PlaceIQ builds audience segments for advertisers by aggregating large amounts of location data from multiple data sources to understand what behaviors, people, and activities exist in a given place and time. This location targeting solution is a powerful, privacy friendly way to define, reach, and learn about specific audiences in the world they live in. The company was founded in 2010, with offices in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Boulder, Colorado.
About Spafax Networks
Spafax Networks, a division of WPP’s tenthavenue, was founded in 2012 with a mission to become the leading global company targeting on-the-go audiences and influencing purchase outcomes across multiple channels and devices.
Spafax Networks’ initial offering is a buying solution for digital placed-based media. As advertisers continue to look for new digitally-capable screens to include in their addressable media plans, Spafax Networks is using a technology and buying methodology solution that can serve inventory — via a demand-side platform, or DSP— in the previously uncharted territory of digital placed-based networks. The Spafax platform optimizes campaigns by identifying target consumers down to the sub-block level and enabling buys to be placed in a biddable, real-time marketplace.
Mobile – Taking Advantage of the First-party Data Economy [VIDEO]
Watch Duncan McCall, PlaceIQ CEO and co-founder, discuss the rapid evolution of data and targeting as it relates to location-based advertising. Panel from Digiday Exchange on 1/31/2013.
PlaceIQ is excited to announce the addition of Tony Nethercutt to its executive team! Tony’s role as Chief Revenue Officer will be to oversee the build out of PlaceIQ’s sales, account management and ad operations teams, as well as manage all publisher and ad network partnerships. Tony will be based out of San Francisco, California. For more, check out our official press release below:
NEW YORK, NY – PlaceIQ announced today that it has appointed Tony Nethercutt to its senior executive team as Chief Revenue Officer. Nethercutt, formerly VP of Sales at YouTube and AdMob, joins PlaceIQ having spent the past two years as General Manager of North America for mobile advertising firm Mojiva Inc.. Nethercutt will oversee the build out of PlaceIQ’s sales, account management and ad operations teams, as well as manage all publisher and ad network partnerships.
Nethercutt commented: “After a very rewarding period at Mojiva and Mocean Mobile, I am very excited to be joining PlaceIQ. The company’s highly unique approach to delivering targeted mobile audiences based on a complex analysis of location, time of day, and many other relevant data points is extremely intriguing and compelling. Working with really smart people internally, and with advertisers and ad agencies to bring a new way of leveraging advertising to influence audiences is always a good time for me. I expect to have a ton of fun at PlaceIQ.”
Since its founding in 2010, PlaceIQ has emerged as the market leader in the mobile audience and location intelligence field. In the process, the company has forged strong partnerships with mobile industry leaders including The Weather Company, Jumptap, Verve Wireless and others, and has worked directly with leading brands across all major industries to drive significant increases in in-store sales and produce award-winning campaigns. The addition of Nethercutt to the executive team promises to strengthen PlaceIQ’s position at the forefront of the emerging mobile ad tech industry.
“Tony is a perfect addition to PlaceIQ as we intensify our efforts to expand our national presence,” said Duncan McCall, Co-founder and CEO of PlaceIQ. “We are in full growth mode as we enter 2013 and feel that Tony’s vision, track record and knowledge of the digital ecosystem fully complement the goals of our company. We are indeed very excited to welcome him on board.”
“We’ve partnered with some very big brands and delivered extremely successful and measured results,” says McCall. “We believe our technology has even stronger reaches, beyond just mobile, and feel we are just scratching the surface of what our company can be.”
In joining Place IQ, Nethercutt is reteaming with former Admob, Quatrro and Millennial Media adviser and current JumpTap Board member John Hadl, who led US Venture Partner’s recent investment in PlaceIQ.
About PlaceIQ (http://www.placeiq.com)
PlaceIQ builds mobile audiences for advertisers by aggregating large amounts of location data from multiple data sources to understand what behaviors, people, and activities exist in a given place and time. This location context targeting is a powerful, privacy friendly way to define, reach, and learn about specific audiences in a mobile world. The company was founded in 2010, with offices in New York City and Boulder, Colorado.
With the whole team in town plus some close friends, PlaceIQ took to Stash for its holiday festivities last night. Under the rosy glow of the domed checkered ceiling of an unassuming little speakeasy, deep down in the heart of Manhattan, a lot was happening. The night began innocently enough with some light Coltrane, a few premium beverages, some laughs, and good company. Before long, the 3D photo booth was in full swing, printing the faces of some of the finest digital advertising minds in the industry; the ice luge was flowing with spirits of all colors; the music was thumping; and the awkward dancing suddenly didn’t feel so awkward. In the end we were left with a large puddle of melted ice, some plastic head pen-toppers, and of course, our dignity.
