Online video ad company Mixpo raises $4M
Mixpo is an online video advertising “platform” company, and in this case the word “platform” means white-label (i.e., rebrandable) software ad creation software offered through local media outlets to local advertisers. This white-label focus is one of the ways it is different from online video ad-creation competitors like SpotMixer (which has a video-ad distribution deal with Google) and Jivox.
That may make Mixpo different enough to survive the poor ad market and still-small online video ad market. The Seattle startup has also raised $4 million to help it do so, in a second round led by Madrona Venture Group.
Recently-announced clients include the NBC local media group, the Tribune newspaper company (including papers like Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun), Fisher Communications, Freedom Communications and TownNews.com. The total includes 57 television stations and around 1,700 newspapers, according to Marketing Shift.
It raised $6.5 million from Madrona, Yaletown Venture Partners and GrowthWorks in 2006.
For a little more, here’s the company’s promotional video:
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.