Immersv, an interactive advertising platform for Mobile 360 and Virtual Reality, has completed a $10.5 million Series A round of financing. Rogers Venture Partners led the investment round, with participation from a top-tier group of institutional and strategic investors including Foundation Capital, The Venture Reality Fund, Initial Capital, East Ventures, HTC Vive, MCJ Co. Ltd., GREE, i-mobile, Metaps, and Gigi Levy. Rogers Venture Partners General Partner, Paul Sestili, and Gumi's Founder and CEO, Hironao Kunimitsu, have joined Immersv's Board of Directors.
The Series A financing builds on a year of significant product and market momentum for Immersv, which combines interactive 360 advertising with a programmatic real time bidding platform. The company has recently signed programmatic deals with more than 15 of the world's largest Demand Side Platforms (DSP's) and Supply Side Platforms (SSP's). Partners now include leading firms such as Tremor Video, YuMe, Bidswitch, ironSource, Supership and United in Japan. Major brands such as Nissan, Hawaii Tourism Bureau, and Mountain Dew have executed successful campaigns as well.
"Immersv is the leader in the next wave of interactive digital advertising," said Mr. Sestili, General Partner with Rogers Venture Partners. "Mobile 360 and VR advertising provides some of the highest view completion rates, click through rates, and overall engagement rates for both brands and performance advertisers. As the central marketplace for buying and selling these new ad formats, Immersv is well positioned to drive significant value for both advertisers and publishers."
"We've been really pleased with the Immersv partnership on our sell-side platform," said David Arslanian, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Tremor Video. "We look forward to helping advertisers programmatically engage with 360 video at scale."
Immersv will use the funds to accelerate product development and deployment, rapidly expand its available inventory through direct Publisher as well as SSP integrations, and bring global brands and performance marketers into Mobile 360 and Virtual Reality.
"We're excited to partner with some of the finest institutional and strategic investors in the world," said Mihir Shah, President and CEO of Immersv, Inc. "While the mobile video market continues to grow, we believe interactive advertising experiences will displace the current video advertising market in the next few years providing better results for advertisers, higher yield for publishers, and a significantly better experience for consumers."
About Immersv, Inc.
Immersv is a Mobile 360 and Virtual Reality marketing platform dedicated to driving these new digital markets to mass consumer adoption. Founded in 2015 by an experienced team of experts in app marketing and ad-tech, Immersv is built from the ground up to help advertisers connect with consumers through interactive mobile 360 and VR while enabling developers to drive both distribution and monetization for their content. The company has offices in Emeryville, California, and is backed by investors including Rogers Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, The Venture Reality Fund, Initial Capital, East Ventures, HTC Vive, MCJ Co. Ltd., GREE, i-mobile, Metaps, Gigi Levy, and more. For more information, visit http://www.immersv.co.
About Rogers Venture Partners
Rogers Venture Partners ("RVP") was established in 2012 as a newly minted $150M venture capital fund headquartered in Palo Alto. The RVP team brings a wealth of global operating and investing experience. At RVP, every one of the partners has an operating background and, most importantly, all came from the high tech industry. As a result, their partners are deeply rooted in the operating ecosystem, allowing portfolio companies to better develop key partnerships and establish meaningful customer contracts. They look to take active roles within each portfolio company and are committed to working towards a common vision of revolutionizing the status quo.