PowerLinks Raises $6.1 Million Series A to Automate Relevant Native Advertising

Native & Programmatic AdvertisingAnalyticsAudience Data

By Rohan Jagan On Feb 14, 2018

Powerlinks Is A Software Platform Which Automates The Buying And Selling Of Personally Relevant And User-Friendly “Native” Advertising

PowerLinks announced that it has secured a £4.58 million ($6.1 million) Series A investment. The round is led by Foresight Group, with participation from leading angel investors and PowerLinks management.

PowerLinks is emerging as a leader in a new generation of advertising platforms, connecting advertisers and publishers in a data rich marketplace, which processes over 6 billion auctions each day.

Ads are bought and sold in real-time, based on precisely defined customer interest profiles, which are augmented by PowerLinks unique “Personal Relevance” data. Unlike traditional digital ads, PowerLinks ads are visually styled in real-time to align with the surrounding webpage or mobile app, thereby delivering a non-intrusive, “native” user experience. This approach provides advertisers with a seamless route to scale with personalized messaging, driving better engagement levels and a significantly lower cost of customer acquisition. Increasingly, the platform’s success is driving demand from search and social advertising into the independent content web.

The investment follows a year of success and expansion, which saw PowerLinks marketplace surpass 4,000 advertising campaigns from 140 connected advertisers, driving revenue growth of 112% year-on-year. PowerLinks also strengthened its relationship with advertising partner Microsoft, Graduating Cohort 7 of the Microsoft Accelerator program for Series A start-ups.

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The capital injection will accelerate PowerLinks’ expansion in the US, with planned additions across the sales, client services and technology teams. The company will also partner with global customers to roll out support in dozens of new markets, having recently expanded in Amsterdam and Berlin.

PowerLinks has integrated 56 analytics, audience data, and media vendors, and will continue to integrate partners which bolster the transparency and automation available to customers. In particular, PowerLinks is adding leading AI and Cognitive Services to its context-focused “Personal Relevance Platform”, which provides granular targeting and brand safety, whilst complying with the incoming European GDPR data laws.

As part of the investment, PowerLinks is pleased to boost its management team with the appointment of Alex Rahaman as Chairman and Mickey Christodoulides as Finance Director.

Rahaman is an experienced ad tech entrepreneur who most recently grew StrikeAd, the VC backed mobile programmatic platform he founded, until its sale to Sizmek Inc. He has led several scale-ups in the adtech space including Unanimis, an independent ad network exited to France Telecom, from which he spun out OpenX, one of the largest global programmatic platforms. Rahaman brings growth, exit and international sector experience and contacts to the team, and has previously held CEO, COO and CFO roles. Rahaman is also CEO of NEXD, a creative technology business with offices in London and across Europe.

Christodoulides has 17 years’ experience of building best practice finance departments, eight of which have been within Ad-tech and media companies. He was the Group Financial Controller for Unruly Media, in which he was heavily involved in the company’s £114m sale to News Corp, the publishing giant owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Additionally, Christodoulides has previously implemented new finance and ERP systems as well as having experience across both US and UK financial reporting.

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