Less than a year after announcing its seed financing, Boston-based Clovr Media is changing its name to Linkable Networks and is adding another big-name investor to its roster. The digital media startup is announcing today that it has received an undisclosed investment from Palo Alto, CA- and Shanghai-based Citi Ventures, a unit of Citigroup.
As its new name indicates, Linkable Networks offers technology enabling merchants to directly link offers in advertisements to credit or debit cards consumers have registered in the system for automatic redemption of the deals. The startup’s previous name stood for “card linked offers with virtual redemption.” Consumers can click on Web ads and scan or enter a code from TV, print, and outdoor ads into their mobile phone to redeem the offers to their cards.
Linkable Networks CEO Tom Burgess said the card-linked offer space is a fragmented one, and that the company’s name needed to better reflect how its technology connects consumers with advertisers and banks. “Linkables are what the advertising world started to call our capabilities,” he said in a phone call with Xconomy.
This past March, Linkable Networks inked an $8.3 million financing led by Jeffrey Glass of Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Kepha Partners, Common Angels, and angel investor Mark Wright. The new cash infusion from Citi will go to supporting demand from advertising networks, building out infrastructure, and fueling growth, according to today’s announcement. The startup’s offer platform has been operating in beta mode over the last year and it plans to make a broader commercial push with banks and media partners this fall.
“Having Citi in our investment group is a nice vote of a confidence for our company and for our solution,” said Burgess.
