Spot Runner Secures Series A Financing from Index Ventures and Battery Ventures; Serial Entrepreneurs Nick Grouf and David Waxman Create First Internet-based Advertising Agency; Company Brings Affordable TV Broadcast Advertising to Local Businesses

Business Wire,  Jan 11, 2006  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

SAN MATEO, Calif. & LONDON -- Index Ventures and Battery Ventures today announced they have co-led a $10M Series A investment in Spot Runner, the first Internet-based advertising agency that makes it fast, easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV. Comerica Bank and others also provided funding for this round.

Spot Runner's web-based service allows businesses to air personalized, high-quality television ads in their local markets. Spot Runner offers a full-service package - commercial production, media planning and ad time - for a fraction of the cost and time of traditional broadcast advertising. A complete campaign can be purchased for as little as $500. In contrast, traditional methods can take weeks and cost tens of thousand of dollars to produce a commercial of comparable quality.

Founded by veteran Internet entrepreneurs Nick Grouf and David Waxman, who previously co-founded Firefly Network (acquired by Microsoft) and PeoplePC, Inc. (acquired by Earthlink), Spot Runner employs a "self serve" automated process that allows customers total control over every step of the commercial production and media planning process.

"Nick and David are extremely forward-thinking individuals," said Danny Rimer, general partner at Index Ventures. "They have shown an uncanny ability to find intersections of macro trends, and the leadership to pull a team together to exploit them. They have assembled talent from the advertising, cable and online worlds, and have set their sights on democratizing the world of television advertising. It's a great team in a large and exciting market."

"Spot Runner is delivering high value to a huge and underserved market," said Roger Lee, general partner at Battery Ventures. "National brands have been using TV to take share from local businesses for years. With Spot Runner, local businesses can use the power of broadcast and secure a professional quality spot in just a few clicks of a mouse. They can finely target and cost-effectively reach their customers using powerful tools that were historically out-of-reach. The Spot Runner platform is a compelling example of how the web has leveled many of the business playing fields."

Spot Runner is launching with a solid roster of clients and offers its services in all 50 states. The customer base spans a wide variety of industries, including law firms, dentists, hair salons, employment agencies, real estate brokers, flower shops, doggie day care centers, and even a surfboard manufacturer.

For more detail on Spot Runner's business and today's news, visit the company's press room at: http://www.spotrunner.com/pr.

About Spot Runner

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Spot Runner, Inc. is a privately held, Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV. Its revolutionary approach gives local businesses the ability to advertise on local TV by making commercial production, media planning and media buying services fast, easy and affordable. The entire process is automated online, making it cost effective for even the smallest of businesses to use. Visit Spot Runner online at www.spotrunner.com.

About Index Ventures

Index Ventures is a leading European venture capital firm active in technology venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping top entrepreneurial teams both in the Life Science and Information Technology sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders.

The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and focuses its investment activity primarily on Europe and Israel. Life science investments include Genmab, Hamilton, BioXell, Parallele Biosciences and 7TM. Information technology investments include Betfair, now the world's largest betting exchange; Virata, (acquired by Conexant) a world leader in DSL and other communication chipsets; Skype (global P2P telephony service recently sold to eBay); MySQL (the world's most popular open source database); and KVS (email archiving firm sold to Veritas). http://www.indexventures.com

About Battery Ventures

Founded in 1983, Battery Ventures is a leading venture capital firm focused on investing in technology companies at all stages of growth from seed to later stage and tech buyouts. Battery leverages its people, expertise and capital to actively guide companies to category dominance. The firm has invested in over 180 companies worldwide across information technology industries. From its offices in Wellesley, MA and San Mateo, CA the partnership manages over $2 billion in committed capital, including its new fund of $450 million. For more information, visit http://www.battery.com.

About Comerica Bank's Technology and Life Sciences Division

Comerica Bank's Technology and Life Sciences Division is one of the nation's leading technology banking practices, offering a wide range of financial services tailored to corporate customers, entrepreneurs and professionals. Veteran bankers provide credit and financial services and products to young, growing, professionally backed technology and life sciences companies, as well as their more mature counterparts. The Technology and Life Sciences Division serves all major U.S. technology centers from offices coast-to-coast and its headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Comerica Bank is a subsidiary of Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA), a financial services company headquartered in Detroit and among the 25 largest U.S. banking companies, with $54.3 billion in total assets at September 30, 2005. For more information, visit http://www.comerica.com.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Business Wire
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning