YuMe grabs $11.9M, video advertising industry seeing more action

YuMe, a video advertising network, has raised $11.9 million in funding, according to a Form D filed with the SEC.

A YuMe spokesperson told VentureBeat the company is not ready to comment.

YuMe connects advertisers and video content creators, so videos appearing on mobile devices, computers, or connected televisions can include advertising revenue in their monitization plans. It uses the “ACE Relevance Engine,” which pairs relevant video content to an ad with the right message. This is difficult because ad copy can’t be matched with keyword-rich text. Instead it is a much more fluid form of content, making it harder to identify the right areas to place ads.

The funding comes from YuMe’s previous investors Accel Partners, Menlo Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Also on the form D are YuMe’s Co-Founder & chief executive officer Jayant Kadambi, co-founder and chief technology officer Ayyappan Sankaran,  chief financial officer Timothy Laehy, and chief revenue officer Scot McLernon. The form also states that the deal was made in both common and preferred stock.

Other video advertising companies are also getting funding, such as BrightRoll, which announced a $30 million round of funding today. The industry has seen some action lately, with YuMe also recently announcing a dedicated advertising product for YuMe and LG Electronics’ connected televisions. This gives developers creating applications for internet enabled televisions the opportunity to gain advertising revenue in lieu of other forms of monitization.

Blinkx, a video search website, also contributed to the video advertising sphere recently with its acquisition of Prime Visibility Media Group, an advertising agency, which bolsters Blinkx’s existing video advertising program, AdHoc.

YuMe was founded in 2004, and has headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. with offices in the UK and around the U.S. The company’s investors include Accel Partners, BV Capital, DAG Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Menlo Ventures and Intel Capital.