Amino PaymentsSM, Inc., the leading transparency and payments company for digital advertising, announced today the closing of its $4.5 million seed round. First Round Capital, led the round, which also included participation from: You & Mr. Jones Brandtech Ventures, NYCA Investment Fund, Tessera Venture Partners, Auren Hoffman, and Tod Sacerdoti. AminoSM will use the funding to expand its footprint throughout the digital advertising ecosystem.

Programmatic provides an extremely effective channel for interactive advertising. But, lack of transparency throughout the interactive ecosystem has created a playground for bad actors, leading to bad practices and fraud, which is estimated by eMarketer to total more than $16B in advertiser losses annually.

"We love what Amino Payments is doing in applying the proven principle of 'follow the money' to the critical issue of media transparency. Their use of blockchain technology to bring transparency to payment transactions across the media industry supply chain can play a very important role in re-establishing the trust and openness that the digital media landscape, and particularly programmatic, desperately need," said David Jones, founder of the Brandtech group You & Mr Jones.

"Programmatic is the future of digital advertising, and depends upon a clean supply chain," said Josh Kopelman, Partner at First Round Capital. "Amino's ingenious adaptation of blockchain technologies makes it the only scalable solution that ensures a clean supply chain."

For ad tech companies, Amino eliminates the unreliable reporting, and slow, complicated, often manual processes, that delay cash and hamper growth. Amino enables companies to get paid faster and more accurately, while creating trust among buyers, sellers and partners.

"Amino demonstrates that payments-making sure the right people get paid the right amount at the right time-is the ultimate check on a clean supply chain," said Auren Hoffman, Founder and CEO of SafeGraph and co-founder of LiveRamp, now a unit of Acxiom.

Amino customers include five of the top-25 programmatic advertisers, who are getting instant value from the security and transparency of the Amino solution, plus partners enjoy faster payment cycles and reporting accuracy that comes from a shared blockchain-based transaction system.

"We are thrilled that preeminent investors in brand tech, ad tech, and fin tech, have invested in Amino," said David Bookspan, Founder and Executive Chairman at Amino. "This combination of smart investors gives Amino a deep bench of leaders and experts in all the disciplines Amino touches, and validates Amino's incredible potential."

About AminoSM
Amino combines the best of blockchain, advertising and payment technologies to bring transparency, integrity, and auditability to online advertising. With a founding team comprised of co-founders of Integral Ad Science, Monetate, and Sailthru, Amino lifts the shroud from the media supply chain and eliminates fraud, waste, and abuse, making the entire industry transparent and cost-effective. For more information, visit aminopay.com.