Rich media ad network Tremor Network, New York, recently secured $8.4 million in its initial round of institutional financing.
The network focuses on providing in-stream and in-banner video. It works with more than 300 publisher sites for a combined 70 million unique visitors per month. Tremor will use the financing to expand its video ad network and build sales force.
“We’re seeing a lot more demand for video and rich media,” Tremor CEO Jason Glickman said. “Video is becoming more mainstream and core to campaigns.”
As part of this financing, Richard W. Levandov, general partner at Masthead Venture Partners, Cambridge, MA, and Warren Lee, principal at Canaan Partners, Menlo Park, CA, will join Tremor’s board of directors. Masthead Venture Partners and Canaan Partners co-led the financing effort.
To lead the company in growth, Tremor hired Randy Kilgore, the former the senior vice president of advertising at Dow Jones & Co., as chief revenue officer.
His duties also include strengthening relationships with advertisers and publishers and overseeing the development of new strategic initiatives for the network. Mr. Kilgore holds board positions with the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Online Publishing Association.
The company, which has offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, will open another one in Chicago before the end of the year
Currently the network partners with about 50 advertisers, though that number varies monthly according to Mr. Glickman. The network began serving video ads in August of last year.
Throughout its growth Tremor will be promoting its proprietary ad insertion technology for video. One complication that the company has involves adjusting creative to the various media players on a user’s PC. By dynamically serving the ad, Tremor avoids requiring specific software.
“It’s kinda been the Wild West in how to run a campaign,” Mr. Glickman said. “We’re trying to make it easier for advertisers and publishers. We allow them to use third party sources or our own technology.”
