Nexage, a leading provider of mobile advertising solutions, has closed US$4 million in Series A funding from BlackBerry Partners Fund and GrandBanks Capital. The funding will be used by Nexage to scale its mobile advertising platform to meet the needs of its growing global customer base, and to strengthen its sales and marketing efforts. Concurrent with the funding, mobile advertising pioneer Mike Baker has been appointed as Chairman of the Nexage Board of Directors; while Matt Golden, Partner at BlackBerry Partners Fund, and Ryan Moore, General Partner at GrandBanks Capital, will be joining the Nexage Board of Directors.
“To fulfill its big potential, the mobile advertising market needs technology like Nexage that enables media buyers and sellers to easily reach relevant audience at scale. Nexage has a unique platform that unites the fragmented media types and ecosystem silos to create one addressable global market” said Baker, formerly Vice President of Nokia and head of Nokia Interactive, the mobile advertising business unit created after the 2007 acquisition of Enpocket, where Baker was the founding investor and CEO.
Nexage’s initial product, AdMax is a mobile ad mediation and optimization solution that enables mobile publishers to maximize revenues from mobile ads while reducing internal operating expenses by connecting to multiple ad networks, and is in use globally by major publishers.
“With this round of funding and support from our investors, we are extremely well positioned to lead the charge in the next wave of mobile advertising. We are also very fortunate to have a thought leader like Mike Baker guide our board of directors and provide input into our long-term strategy and vision,” said Dev Gandhi, CEO of Nexage. “The BlackBerry Partners Fund’s laser focus and in-depth knowledge of the mobile sector will play an important role in helping us further differentiate our offerings and grow our mobile advertising ecosystem. GrandBanks Capital has led some very successful mobile investments, including Enpocket, and their active style of helping to build market leaders will be invaluable as we enter our next growth phase.”
Nexage will be relocating its headquarters to Boston to take advantage of the city’s recognized talent pool and success in mobile advertising.
About BlackBerry Partners Fund
The BlackBerry Partners Fund™ is designed to deliver superior returns on the compelling investment opportunity in applications, services and supporting infrastructure for the BlackBerry® and other mobile platforms. The Fund’s mandate is based on the premise that in the future smartphones will be powerful portable computers for use at home, work, and leisure. The Fund invests in companies developing applications that make smartphones a compelling platform for media, commerce, enterprise, entertainment, and lifestyle applications. The Fund is global in scope and will consider all stages of development. For further information visit: www.blackberrypartnersfund.com.
About GrandBanks Capital
GrandBanks Capital invests in early stage technology companies located primarily in the eastern part of the United States and Canada. With headquarters outside of Boston, the firm was established in partnership with SOFTBANK Corp. and has proven investment expertise in Internet infrastructure, software, security and storage applications, media and wireless technologies and services, and financial technologies and services. The GrandBanks Capital portfolio currently includes: Colubris Networks Inc., Coradiant Inc., Ember Corporation, Enpocket Inc., First Coverage Inc., GlassHouse Technologies, Inc., Incipient, Inc., OutStart, Inc., uLocate Communications, Inc, Vela Systems, Inc., and Vivox. For more information, please visit http://grandbanks-wp.millersystems.com.
About NEXAGE, Inc.
Nexage is a leading developer of Mobile Advertising solutions that enables companies to maximize Ad revenue from their mobile properties. Its leading product is the AdMax Gateway, a hosted Ad Optimization service that enables carriers and media companies to fully control and maximize the monetization of their mobile channels. It has been demonstrated to serve text, banner, in-application and video Ads with higher fill rates and effective CPM than could be achieved previously. Currently AdMax powers mobile Ads for a number of top tier publishers, broadcasters and operators. Additional information is available at www.Nexage.com.
