Europe’s Ebuzzing raises $25M for social media ad platform

Ebuzzing, a European social media ad platform, has raised $25 million in a second round of funding to fuel its expansion across Europe.

Based in Luxembourg, Ebuzzing connects users to branded video content via social media. It reached about 28.5 million unique visitors in July through its own properties. Those properties include OverBlog, the No. 1 European blogging platform. The deal shows that it isn’t just U.S. social media companies that are scoring big rounds of capital.

Pierre Chappaz, chief executive of Ebuzzing, said that the company’s business is booming thanks to the growth of social video advertising. Ebuzzing seeds video commercials into social media, using its network to connect brands with large communities of bloggers and other social media users. Ebuzzing has more than 2,000 international and regional brands as its customers.

The company has 160 people across offices throughout Europe. The company was formerly known as Wikio Group, which was founded in 2007. Chappaz said the company will integrate its Wikio news sites into the Ebuzzing web site.

Investors include GIMV, a European venture capital fund, and existing investors Lightspeed, Gemini, Solorun and Chappaz. The company has made eight acquisitions in the past 18 months, including Trigami in June. Now the company will likely pursue more merger and acquisition opportunities, Chappaz said. In 2010, the company generated revenue of $15 million and it expects to top $25 million this year.