SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - March 9, 2011) - Today, Web-based advertising platform Flite (formerly Widgetbox) announced a $12 Million Series C round of financing led by General Catalyst Partners, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Hummer Winblad and NCD Investors. Flite, which also today announced its name change [Editor's Note: please see "Widgetbox Takes Flite!"], provides a cloud-based advertising platform that allows marketers to create interactive ads that leverage real-time Web content, resulting in consumer engagement of more than ten times the industry standard for traditional online display ads.
"We're inspired by Flite's mission of changing the way brands and publishers team to create ads leveraging a Web-based model that will revolutionize the way online ads are built and delivered," said Neil Sequeira, managing director at General Catalyst. "Flite has a tremendous amount of market momentum and is working with an impressive set of both advertisers and publishers. We believe the company has an opportunity to re-think the whole category and create a new era of innovation in the digital advertising industry."
Flite is changing the way advertisers connect with consumers, resulting in dramatically improved ad performance across tablets, smartphones and computers. The platform enables advertisers and publishers to deliver real-time, interactive display ads that are built with Web-based tools and comprehensive analytics to give advertisers in-depth insights into customer engagement beyond mere click-through rates. The latest round of funding allows Flite to continue to build out its platform to help marketers move away from existing display ads that require more cumbersome and time-consuming processes.
"Online display ads have, for the most part, remained unchanged since they first came into existence more than a decade ago," said Will Price, CEO of Flite. "We are creating a significant re-thinking of the space by offering a platform that allows marketers to harness dynamic and social Web content to quickly create richer, more engaging ads. Flite is moving the display ad market forward by incorporating real-time elements and delivering more insightful metrics for marketers to create interactive, compelling ads that are exponentially more effective. Our mission is to change the landscape of display ads as we know it."
Flite's cloud-based ads allow brands to flight ads as interactive and impactful as the Web itself. Flite publishing partners include leaders such as LinkedIn, Forbes, Yahoo!, CBS Interactive and IDG, and brand advertisers such as L'Oreal, Microsoft, Toyota, Charles Schwab and more than one hundred and twenty leading brands have used the Flite platform to deliver their brand experiences across the Web. With twenty-five billion units served, more than one hundred and twenty million monthly uniques, and fifty-five million unique daily events captured by Flite's metrics system, Flite's technology is proven to scale. For more information, please visit www.flite.com.
About Flite
Flite is a cloud-based ad platform that enables marketers to improve brand recall and purchase intent by leveraging real-time content. The Flite platform of Web-based tools allows marketers to easily produce ads that express the power of their brand as effectively as their brand's own website. With Flite, marketers receive up to a 10x increase in ROI on their brand spend with ads developed in 1/10th the time. For more information, visit: www.flite.com.
About General Catalyst Partners
General Catalyst Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are building the technology-based companies that will lead innovation and transform industries. Founded in 2000, General Catalyst Partners leverages its principals' extensive operational, business development and technological expertise to provide portfolio companies with a catalyst for success through business-building and partnership development assistance. General Catalyst has offices in Cambridge, MA and Palo Alto, CA. For more information, please visit: http://www.generalcatalyst.com.
Contact Information:
Contact
Greer Karlis or Emma Starks
flite@launchsquad.com
415-625-8555