What the heck is social video analytics and advertising?
Whatever it is, Visible Measures has closed a Series D financing round worth $13 million, based on the strength of its software platform in that field. The Boston company, which started in 2005, has raised a total of more than $45 million to date. DAG Ventures led the latest round, and new strategic partner Advance Publications (which owns Conde Nast) and previous investors General Catalyst, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Northgate Capital also participated.
The concept behind Visible Measures is to help advertisers and publishers track online video performance—how Web viewers interact with videos, which segments they watch, when they share it with others (hence the social bit), and more broadly how the content spreads across video sites like YouTube and AOL. At stake is billions of TV advertising dollars that many predict will shift to online as the audience for Internet video grows and software tools allow for better ad targeting.
Visible Measures has nearly 80 employees, according to CEO and founder Brian Shin (see photo above). The team is split between Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Ottawa, Wyoming, and London.
The company operates at the intersection of entertainment, digital media, software analytics, and advertising. Other firms with complementary or related approaches in video and ads include Akamai, comScore, Quantcast, Bluefin Labs, Brightcove, DataXu, Extreme Reach, and Wistia.
It was refreshing to hear Shin speak at a FutureM event last week about how he didn’t have it all figured out back in the early days of Visible Measures.
“We said, ‘Let’s try this advertising thing,'” he said. “When you’re trying to create a new market, there aren’t a lot of great examples. You have to have advisors, people you trust, to help you grow.”
