SAN FRANCISCO/PRNewswire/ -- Sharethrough, the leader in social video advertising, today announced that it has closed a $5 million
Series A equity financing round led by North Bridge Venture Partners
and Floodgate. Sharethrough offers brands a repeatable, scalable and
transparent approach to distributing creative brand video content that
guarantees reach and maximizes shared engagement. Advertisers are
increasingly creating unique video content beyond 15-30 second TV ads,
and they are turning to Sharethrough for guaranteed views and sharing.
Early Sharethrough social video studies have shown that shared views
average 3x more view time than views delivered through paid media, and
that social video marketing delivers significant increases in brand
lift, engagement, and sharing.
While brand managers are investing unprecedented amounts in the
development of creative and entertaining brand video content, many are
struggling with how to create audiences for this content in a scalable
and repeatable way. Unlike traditional video ad networks that focus
solely on delivering views and impressions, or PR-driven campaigns that
rely on luck to generate interest, the Sharethrough video distribution
platform and network offers advertisers a performance-based system that
guarantees video views and optimizes for sharing through its social
video ad units, highly social publisher network and industry leading
targeting and reporting technology. Sharethrough has executed more than
200 campaigns on behalf of top brands, including Sony, Xbox, GM,
Activision, Nestle and LEGO, and has more campaigns than any other
company on AdAge's weekly Top Viral Video Chart.
"The future of advertising is social, and social is all about
sharing. We've shown time and again that shared video views are superior
to traditional views because they fuel a much higher level of
engagement with the content and the brand," said Dan Greenberg,
co-founder and CEO of Sharethrough. "At Sharethrough, we respect
creative and entertaining content, and we celebrate the amazing brands
and agencies who produce it. The vision of this company is to enable
that creative branded content to reach the audiences who will most
appreciate it. Our customers recognize that creating great content is
only part of the equation - the challenge is getting your content seen
and shared. Before Sharethrough, this process too often relied on the
'post and pray' strategy. Now with Sharethrough as a distribution
partner, brands and agencies can have confidence that audiences will
watch and share the creative video content that they produce."
In addition to North Bridge Venture Partners and Floodgate,
Sharethrough has also attracted high-profile angel investors including
industry veteran Ron Conway, entrepreneur and angel investor Ron Bouganim, customer development guru Steve Blank, and Rapleaf CEO Auren Hoffman.
With this round, Cali Tran will join the Sharethrough board of
directors. Sharethrough's advisory board also includes 500 Startups
founding partner Dave McClure, Lean Startup founder Eric Ries, former CEO of Adaptive Path Janice Fraser, VP Sales Interclick Taz Patel, Mozes CEO Dorrian Porter, and Attributor CEO Jim Pitkow.
"The demand for social video advertising is growing tremendously, and
as the leader in this emerging area, Sharethrough will help shape the
way we understand and measure the impact of branded video content," said
Cali Tran, principal of North Bridge Venture Partners. "The company is
at the forefront of leveraging social media, and more importantly, its
valuable data attributes. This funding will help Sharethrough continue
to empower brands and advertisers to not only discover their most
passionate customers, but also engage them for powerful social
advocacy."
Sharethrough was founded by Dan Greenberg and Robert Fan
and is managed by a team of entrepreneurs with deep expertise in social
commerce technology, video advertising, marketing, film and video
content creation. Team members have led some of the most successful
brand video campaigns in history and bring expertise from marketing and
video innovators, including Google, VideoEgg and Current TV.
About Sharethrough
Sharethrough provides brands with a repeatable, scalable and
transparent approach to distributing video content that guarantees
viewership and maximizes shared engagement. Sharethrough drives engaged
audiences for brand videos through its social video ad products, unique
publisher network and proprietary targeting and optimization tools.
Sharethrough is used by many of the world's leading brands, including
Sony, Xbox, Victoria's Secret, Nestle and LEGO. Founded in 2008, Sharethrough is a privately held company based in San Francisco, Calif. For more information about Sharethrough, please visit www.sharethrough.com
SOURCE Sharethrough
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