The cash flows endlessly for virtual ads space: Demandbase snags $15M

Demandbase chief executive Chris Golec doesn’t have to work if he doesn’t want to.

In 2000, he sold his company SupplyBase for $380 million to i2 Tehnologies.

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But the wily entrepreneur, 48, loves a challenge when he sees one. The former General Electric employee now runs a B2B outfit targeting the Internet’s corporate ad space, and Golec and his 100-member team snared a $15 million fifth round of funding Monday.

Demandbase, based in San Francisco, has raised $60 million to date since launching in 2006.

And, as it turns out, the startup is growing quickly.

“We’re managing a billion transactions on our platform a month,” Golec said to VentureBeat Monday, noting clients include Adobe, Cisco, and Salesforce. 

Demandbase’s B2B enterprise software platform allows companies to strategically target large and mid-size companies with real-time marketing campaigns. While Demandbase’s proprietary software has a full suite of analytic capabilities built into it, the company right now focuses on the desktop experience. They are in the process of building their mobile ad capabilities.

“Say Adobe has 1,700 accounts. What we can do is help Adobe by serving ads directly to that number instead of focusing on the 35 million people just visiting the site. … At the end of the day, a majority of people visiting a site won’t buy anything. What we do is to identify a good customer and bring in more companies to their sites,” the friendly, rapidly talking Golec said.

The virtual ad market, in particular the mobile ad space, is wide open and ripe for the taking. Venture capitalists and institutional investors love the arena and have thrown tens of billions at startups looking for a piece of it.

While many of these will fail, Demandbase stands out because it’s targeting a niche but lucrative market with a tested enterprise platform that companies are paying to use. There is competition, of course, but Golec says none of the few others doing what Demandbase does offer a full-suite of products.

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“We plug directly into Adobe’s stack, Salesforce’s stack. … We don’t replace what you’re using; we’re making it more effective for the B2B space. We’re the only fully digital platform dedicated to the B2B space,” Golec said.