Taykey, the leading provider of trends-based advertising solutions, today announced the launch of a new marketing platform, a revolutionary approach for brands to automate the discovery and activation of trends, supported by $15 million in new funding. This investment round comes from Innovation Endeavors, Eric Schmidt's venture arm, and current Taykey investors, including SoftBank Capital, Sequoia Capital, Marker LLC and Tenaya Capital.

'Taykey is blazing a new way forward for brands to engage with key audiences in the right place, at the right time, and with the right message'

Taykey's mission is to help marketers be where their audience is right now. Taykey discovers what's trending for your audience, enabling marketers to automatically target and learn from it in real-time. Taykey's marketing platform is transparent, and links to leading ad platforms and existing media platforms to bring the power of real-time trends everywhere.

Historically, Taykey has applied its sophisticated trends discovery engine to programmatically buy media that is relevant to brands' key audiences, in real-time. With its new marketing platform, Taykey is broadening the applications of its real-time advertising solution so businesses can apply the trends-based insights to wider marketing strategy, including social media content, audience insights and market analytics.

Many marketers sponsor TV shows and events, or purchase print and radio advertising space, because they want to be where their audiences are. Due to the fragmented nature of online behavior, there are no 'billboard' equivalents on the internet that allow brands to target audiences at scale. Listening technologies are not actionable, rendering them effectively useless, and agency-driven 'war rooms' for activation during large events like the Super Bowl are manual, cumbersome and must be pre-planned. Taykey combines the benefits of listening and activation solutions to deliver a truly market-leading solution that helps marketers develop relevant and impactful content for target audiences, and then activate that content online.

'Taykey is blazing a new way forward for brands to engage with key audiences in the right place, at the right time, and with the right message,' said Joe Medved, partner, SoftBank Capital. 'Taykey's unique approach to programmatic real-time ad placements, supported by its actionable trends-based marketing insights, has made the company a very promising investment for us.'

This news follows a record-breaking year for Taykey, in which the company executed more than 1,000 real-time advertising campaigns for its customers. The company has grown its revenue by 600% since January 2013, resulting from work for leading Fortune 500 brands like AT&T, Verizon, Proctor & Gamble, Disney, Marriott, MasterCard, Microsoft, Google, Starbucks and Toyota. Today, seven out of 10 of the top advertisers in the U.S., as defined by Advertising Age, are Taykey clients.

'Taykey's vision is to help brands create 'prime time' opportunities online by targeting their ads against what's most popular for target audiences, at any given moment,' said Amit Avner, CEO and founder, Taykey. 'As we have progressed, we have learned that these trends have applications far beyond advertising. Understanding the trends that your target audience is following can inform everything from social media strategy to product design. The new Taykey marketing platform is a natural evolution of our existing solution, allowing brands to apply trends-based insights throughout their businesses.'

About Taykey

Taykey empowers Fortune 500 brands to act on what's trending, delivering real-time advertising solutions that drive relevance and results. Taykey mines data from thousands of online sources, discovers what is trending for specific audiences and automates the media buying process. Ultimately, Taykey's real-time advertising solution helps brands like American Express, BestBuy, General Electric, Paramount and Volkswagen transform unique insights into audiences, trending conversations and consumer sentiment. For more information, visit: www.taykey.com.