Teads raises $5.2M to pepper online publications with video ads

Video advertising platform Teads has raised $5.2 million to fuel its global expansion.

Teads positions itself as the “Appnexus of video.” It provides a customizable ad tech platform for buyers and sellers. Its tools not only make it easier to create video ads, but also to serve them to a large audience.

The company’s most popular video ad format, called inRead, places a video ad in the middle of an article and only plays when the video is visible. Its platform is deployed by over 500 publishers in more than 30 countries. Teads says it delivers billions of video impressions every month and processes all the collected data in real-time.

Teads is behind video ads from prestigious publishers around the world, including Le Monde, Le Figaro, Financial Times, Forbes, The Economist, The Guardian, El Mundo, La Repubblica, and Reuters.

The French startup lets publishers and brands create video ads using a range of templates and formats, which can run on multiple channels and devices and be made interactive. Teads also offers solutions for managing campaigns and monetizing inventory through private ad exchanges.

Video advertising is a hot market this year and is expected to more than double to $9 billion in 2017, up from $4.14 billion this year. There is also a lot of activity in the sector. Video ad tech companies Yume and Tremor went public this year, AOL bought Adap.tv for $405 million, and companies like Taboola and TubeMogul are raising eight-figure rounds of venture capital.

Even Facebook is jumping on this trend.

Teads will help TV advertisers invest in digital advertising and help publishers make more money off the ads they are running.

Partech Venture and Elaia Partners participated in this round. Teads is based in London, and its main market penetration is in France and the United Kingdom, but it is now setting its sights further afield. In addition to its London headquarters, it has offices in New York, Sydney, and Paris.