Sharethrough operates a marketplace and the Sharethrough for Publishers (SFP) software platform that enables brands and media companies to create, manage and monetize in-feed advertising across connected devices. The company’s platform is used to drive engagement for original brand content on publishers’ websites. Led by CEO Dan Greenberg, Sharethrough has been adopted by over 300 premium publishers, including Men’s Health, Gannett, Forbes, Time Inc. and Business Insider. In the past year it opened offices in London and acquired the UK content marketing company VAN. The company says it will use the new funding to accelerate global expansion and product development and is actively hiring. The product focus and recent partnerships indicate a push to scale publisher adoption and international presence. Sharethrough operates a native advertising exchange focused on in-feed and in-stream ad formats and distribution of branded content. The company evolved from an earlier focus on video ads to support multiple formats via its Sharethrough Advertising Exchange. Its network includes publishers such as People, Forbes, and Popular Mechanics, and comScore reports the Sharethrough network reaches 227 million unique visitors monthly, including 119 million on mobile. Sharethrough positions itself as the largest native ad platform and emphasizes promoting meaningful brand content. The company announced a $17 million financing (see deal details) and says it will continue technology development, pursue international expansion, and hire additional engineers and sales and bring STR software to more publishers. Dan Greenberg is founder and CEO and the company’s leadership has been active in promoting native advertising. Sharethrough builds native video advertising products that are customized to a publisher’s website and designed to feel like an organic part of content. The company launched the Sharethrough Sponsored Videos platform to standardize and scale native video ad deployment for a large number of publishers and advertisers. CEO Dan Greenberg framed the company’s strategy as aggressively doubling or tripling down on native video advertising. Sharethrough reports its platform reaches 105 million people in the United States and distributes native ads for 50% of the top 100 brands and more than 85% of the top U.S. media agencies. The company says revenue is up 87% year‑over‑year. As part of its growth push, Sharethrough has added senior hires including Chief Revenue Officer Mike Gaffney and VP of Operations James Navin. Sharethrough operates a social video ad network that helps agencies and marketers distribute brand video advertisements through social ad formats. Its ad unit allows viewers to tweet videos and share content on Facebook directly from within the ad. The company provides clients with metrics and data on how each video advertisement performs. Sharethrough has run more than 200 campaigns on publisher sites, including Reddit, for brands such as Sony, Xbox, GM, Activision, Nestle and LEGO. On the financing side, Sharethrough raised $5 million in a Series A led by North Bridge Venture Partners and Floodgate, following a prior $1 million angel round from Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Baseline Ventures and others. The company competes with players like Tremor Media, Brightroll and YuMe.

Total raised

$38M

Funding rounds

6

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Sep 2014