Companies blinkx bought
Rhythm connects brand advertisers with highly engaged mobile audiences by selling and serving video, rich media and other immersive advertising formats. Rhythm has partnered with more than 50 premium media companies, typically on an exclusive basis, across an unparalleled portfolio of 200+ properties to deliver meaningful brand advertising within the highest quality content for targeted, relevant audiences. Our premium media partners include NBC Universal, CBS, ABC, Fox, Warner Bros., IAC, Demand Media and many others. In 2012 alone, more than 200 top brand advertisers including P&G, Unilever, Disney, McDonald’s, General Motors, Ford, AT&T, Verizon, Macy's, Marriott and Wrigley ran campaigns with Rhythm and achieved unprecedented engagement results. Investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Rembrandt Venture Partners, and QuestMark Partners.
Founded in October 1995, Burst is a full service provider of digital advertising solutions for Independent Web publishers and brand advertisers.
We’ve grown up in the digital space and clearly see how it fosters vibrant and diverse communities that are redefining the way brands must communicate, interact and engage with consumers. For Burst nowhere is the power of communities more current than in the Independent Web – and the Independent Web is what Burst believes in. Where we succeed is bringing the Independent Web to brands that want to reach loyal, highly segmented audiences – no one does it better and at greater scale than Burst. Burst is the Independent Web – and through our direct publisher relationships and our cutting-edge creative solutions we bring success to publishers, advertisers and audiences alike.
In addition to our digital media offerings, we also market AdConductor, an ad management solution, to ad-supported businesses such as ad networks, technology providers, portals and individual web sites.
Grab Media is a leading premium video distribution company. It connects premium video content from a wide collection of professional sources and brand-name advertisers to ideal viewers. Marketers rely on Grab Media to position their message in front of large-scale, engaged audiences, so they can focus on brand promotion. Grab Networks Holdings, Inc., formerly Anystream Inc., was founded in 2008. In 2013 the Grab Media property was acquired by blinkx (LSE AIM: BLNX), the Internet Media platform powered by CORE video technology, headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices worldwide.(Also Yahoo wanted to buy grab media too)
Based in Santa Monica, Calif., Lyfe Mobile offers audience-targeting features using GPS data combined with other data points such as weather, traffic and population density, as well as campaign-management tools to help brands deliver targeted ads. The company offers various mobile ad formats, including display, video and native ads.
As part of the transaction, Blinkx is hiring all 11 members of Lyfe Mobile, including engineers, data scientists and business staff. Acquiring Lyfe Mobile represents Blinkx’s “first foray” into the demand side of programmatic advertising, said Blinkx CEO Subhransu Brian Mukherjee.
He described Lyfe Mobile’s platform as one that connects with supply-side partners, comparing it with mobile DSP StrikeAd and the mobile capabilities of Turn.
“Historically Blinkx has been focused on the supply side of the ecosystem,” Mukherjee said. “This acquisition represents our first step in bridging the gap between the supply side and the demand side, particularly in mobile.”
Mukherjee acknowledged that Blinkx is taking Lyfe Mobile on at a loss because the startup was not profitable at the time of the acquisition, but said it has a “ready-made team that understands mobile and will complement the ad network that we bought in Rhythm (New Media).”
Blinkx is a 10-year-old public company with headquarters in San Francisco and London. In addition to operating a video search engine and discovery platform, it also owns ad network Burst Media (acquired in 2011) and mobile-focused video ad platform Rhythm New Media (bought in 2013).
blinkx is the Internet Media platform powered by CORE, the world’s most advanced video engine. We link viewers with content publishers and distributors, and monetize those interactions through advertising. Founded in 2004, blinkx floated on the London Stock Exchange (AIM) in May, 2007 and has a compound annual growth rate of over 100% since IPO.
Through its flagship site, blinkx.com, blinkx pioneered video search on the Internet, developing an engine based on technology that was conceived at Cambridge University, enhanced by $150M in R&D over 15 years, and is now protected by 111 patents. Today, blinkx is a broad digital media technology, distribution and monetization platform that connects consumers, advertisers and content across four screens. Through its partnerships with hundreds of media companies, including NBC, Conde Nast, Reuters and Bloomberg, blinkx has indexed and search enabled millions of hours of video content. blinkx powers video search, discovery or monetization on thousands of online properties including Lycos, Discovery Networks, Hallmark and Fox Sports. blinkx continues to pioneer innovative approaches to digital video distribution, expanding into mobile video and Connected TV through partnerships with Samsung, Sony, Roku and other industry leaders.
PVMG's platform, which gets about 1.5 billion queries and generates about 14 ad interactions each day, will support the ability for blinkx to deliver videos in search results. The company serves a network of more than 600 advertisers and 350 publishers.
Universal search results on engines like google.com require technology that can sort through billions of videos online. ComScore estimates that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 40 billion video views in September, for an average of 19.5 hours per viewer.
Blinkx Founder Suranga Chandratillake said developing technology similar to PVMG would have required financial resources and time. In fact, lots of it -- between two and five years.
