VigLink, the leading platform for content-driven commerce, today announced it has raised $18 million in a Series C financing. The round was led by RRE Ventures with participation from existing investors Google Ventures, Emergence Capital, First Round Capital and additional investment from Correlation Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. Eric Wiesen, a General Partner with RRE Ventures, will join the VigLink Board of Directors. The company plans to use the additional funding to fuel international expansion and better address the needs of advertisers.

'The link is the original native ad,' said Oliver Roup, Founder and CEO of VigLink. 'A defining feature of the Internet, links engage readers and drive tremendous value to their target. That value has never been market priced until now.'

VigLink enables native advertising in the form of ordinary links embedded directly into the publisher's content. Publishers get paid for the sales they drive and advertisers gain new customers. The VigLink Exchange (VLX) is the platform on which these site-to-site clicks are priced, bought, and sold. For both existing links and mentions of products, the company's technology routes clicks to the highest yielding advertiser, maximizing revenue for the publisher and driving new customers to the advertiser. Clicks delivered through VLX price significantly higher than traditional affiliate links.

'VigLink has focused on enabling content creators to capture the value of the influence they drive through media such as blogs, editorial, enthusiast communities and social platforms,' said Roup. 'We've seen that VLX dramatically changes the yield of in-content links. This new capital will allow us to also empower advertisers with tools to unlock that value.'

The VigLink Publisher Network is more than 10 billion pageviews a month and represents a diverse cross-section of the Internet, from household media brands such as Elle, Road & Track, and CNET to independent bloggers, forum owners, and mobile apps. Over 35,000 advertisers work with VigLink to drive sales, including eBay, Amazon, Nike, Nordstrom, Hilton, and Best Buy.

'Traffic is the currency of the web,' says Eric Wiesen, General Partner with RRE Ventures. 'I see a massive opportunity to help publishers harvest and monetize the intent generated within their content and VigLink is the leading company in the world at routing that intent to advertisers and merchants.'

About VigLink

VigLink is the leading platform for content-driven commerce. The largest network of its kind, VigLink monetizes content that drives commerce for over 300,000 sites and works with more than 35,000 merchants to drive sales. Each month, VigLink processes more than 10 billion pageviews and over five hundred million clicks. Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, VigLink is backed by top investors including Google Ventures, First Round Capital, Emergence Capital, and RRE. More information can be found at www.viglink.com or @VigLink.