LONDON, UK, April 8, 2011 – Rocket Fuel Inc. (
http://www.rocketfuel.com), the company bringing rocket science to digital advertising, announced that it has secured a $6.6 million Series “C” funding round led by Northgate Capital, a later-stage investor in rapid growth and emerging technology companies. The round also included participation by existing Rocket Fuel investors including Mohr Davidow Ventures, Labrador Capital Fund, Nokia Growth Partners and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &Rosati.
Rocket Fuel’s Series “C” funding brings its overall corporate valuation to $160 million and based on its current run-rate for sales and bookings, the company projects revenue of more than $50 million for the current year. The company will use the proceeds of this funding round to augment an already robust organic growth trajectory, with a focus on new product development as well as expansion of business development, sales and marketing activities.
“As we prepare for continued expansion, our latest funding round represents a resounding validation of Rocket Fuel’s innovation and leadership in the science of digital advertising, as well as the long term potential of our company,” said George John, CEO at Rocket Fuel. “With this investment, we enter into an important new phase of development and expansion as we weave together intelligent solutions that help marketers make digital advertising work better across display, video, mobile and social media inventory.”
Founded by former executives from NASA, Yahoo! and DoubleClick, Rocket Fuel now boasts a rapidly expanding customer base of more than 300 major blue chip companies and global brands. With more than 150 repeat customers to date, Rocket Fuel works with eight of the top 10 AdAge Leading National Advertisers, and eight of the top 10 Interbrand Most Valuable Brands through relationships with major advertising and digital agencies. The company has experienced extraordinary growth since it launched its first digital advertising solution in 2009, and now employs more than 90 individuals across six offices in the U.S., in addition to its corporate headquarters in the Silicon Valley.
“We are strong believers in Rocket Fuel and the promise its technology offers to digital advertisers,” said Brent Jones, managing director at Northgate Capital in Danville, California. “Rocket Fuel has a deep understanding of the needs of marketers in reaching new online customers wherever they reside in the sales funnel, and we remain bullish on the vision and execution of its executive team in particular as they continue to outpace their competitors in terms of technology innovation and outstanding clientele.”
Based on an advanced proprietary response prediction and targeting technology, Rocket Fuel delivers better digital advertising results against marketers’ brand goals by driving more efficient action and engagement with online customers across all stages of the marketing funnel. Offering unparalleled precision and efficiency, the company’s unique Progressive Optimization™ technology is used by all of Rocket Fuel’s digital advertising solutions, and combines more than 8,500 attributes including behavioral, contextual and demographic targeting into a single composite profile. It is guided by real-time electronic bidding that processes more than 1.5 billion impressions each day, and is automatically refreshed according to each individual advertiser’s goals every 15 minutes.
About Rocket Fuel Inc.
Rocket Fuel Inc. is the company bringing rocket science to digital advertising. With its advanced technology, the company is helping marketers reach their brand goals quickly and easily, anywhere in the purchase funnel. Over 150-million people a month see ads from its Rocket Fuel Network, which combines behavioral, contextual, geographic, demographic, and many other techniques to yield results far more powerful than any method could on its own. Rocket Fuel automatically adapts advertisers’ campaigns in real-time to optimize towards their goals – whether brand-oriented or performance driven. If you can measure it, Rocket Fuel can optimize it. The Silicon Valley-based company was founded by veterans from NASA, Yahoo! and DoubleClick. With headquarters in Redwood Shores, California, Rocket Fuel now employs more than 90 people in seven cities including New York, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company plans to open additional offices in the US, and expand into international markets in 2011. For more information visit
http://www.rocketfuel.com.
For further information, please contact:
Vanessa Land
Devonshire Marketing
Tel: +44 (0)7768 693779
Email: vanessa[at]devonshiremarketing[dot]com
Distributed on behalf of Devonshire Marketing by NeonDrum news distribution service (
http://www.neondrum.com)
