In-Image Ad Company GumGum Raises $26M

GumGum announced this morning that it has raised $26 million in Series C funding.

Founded in 2007, the company offers technology to identify the content of an image, then place ads to match the picture — for example, here’s a GumGum-powered Coke ad that appears in an image of “healthy” pizza. The company also says it has expanded beyond in-image ads to support a broader selection of advertising that appears alongside editorial content.

GumGum has now raised more than $36 million in total funding, according to CrunchBase. The new round was led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, with participation from previous investors including NEA, Upfront Ventures and First Round Capital.

GumGum pans to spend the new money on additional growth overseas, improved image recognition and computer vision, and product development for ad units. The company also says it serves more than 2,000 premium publishers reaching 400 million visitors each day.

I’m scheduled to speak to GumGum founder and CEO Ophir Tanz later today. I’ll update this post afterward.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/RWO2Tvlv_8M/
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