Investment will help fund international expansion
London - Kennet Venture Partners Ltd ("Kennet"), a leading international venture capital firm focused on the technology sector, has invested $8 million in Adviva Media Ltd ("Adviva"), the leading UK-based online advertising network for brand advertisers.
Adviva is a London-based provider of network online advertising services to major international brand advertisers. Adviva aggregates advertising inventory from its network of 200 high-quality websites and places this inventory with the media agencies that represent brand advertisers. Adviva currently serves over 500 million ads per month.
Adviva's network reached over 17.9 million unique users in October 2005, representing 62% of the total UK online audience. Adviva's network is consistently one of the top five UK properties in terms of unique user reach, along with MSN, Google and eBay.
Adviva was founded in 2000 by Todd Treusdell and Phil Coote and has historically focused its business on the UK market. The company is now developing its offering in Europe, expanding initially into Germany and France. With this expansion, Adviva will address the three largest advertising markets in Europe.
Kennet is the first institutional investor in Adviva, which to date has been funded through reinvested profits. As part of the investment, Kennet Managing Directors Michael Elias and Javier Rojas will join Adviva's board of directors.
"Online advertising represents a rapidly growing portion of overall ad spend, and the Internet is now used by brand advertisers who are increasingly shifting their spend from print, television and radio." said Michael Elias, Managing Director, Kennet Venture Partners. "Adviva's position as a premium brand advertising network puts it at the confluence of these two trends."
"We provide outstanding service to our customers and our proprietary 'lifestyle' demographic profiling technology allows our advertisers the ability to reach specific target groups, which are key to their brand," said Adviva CEO Todd Treusdell. "We are enthusiastic about the international expansion of Adviva and our partnership with Kennet."
Established in 2000, Adviva offers network online advertising to publishers and advertisers. A forward thinking approach to account management, coupled with an aggressive approach to technology development is crucial to Adviva's continued success. Built on reputation, Adviva concentrate on CPM network advertising working with good quality UK websites and advertisers. A no nonsense approach has made Adviva unique in the industry and has driven growth year on year to create one of the largest, most comprehensive and best performing networks in the UK. www.adviva.com
Kennet Venture Partners is a leading transatlantic venture capital firm which invests in growth companies providing information technology products and business services that leverage information technology. Kennet provides expansion capital to firms that want to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value in partnership with an experienced investor. Kennet Venture Partners acts as an advisor to Kennet I LP, a Jersey limited partnership and to Kennet II LP, a Guernsey limited partnership. Kennet Venture Partners is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. For more information: www.kennet.com