UniQlick, a Beijing-based start-up, announced today that it has received US$5 million in Series B funding led by SingTel Innov8 and Mustang Ventures.

Launched in 2010, UniQlick has developed its On Demand workflow solution to help agencies and advertisers scale their digital advertising operations by overcoming the challenges of executing digital advertising campaigns in China's complex market. On Demand automates the majority of the campaign workflow, making execution less labor-intensive. It also enables users to centralize and standardize campaign administration, which helps them overcome issues caused by a lack of uniform digital standards.

"Everyone acknowledges that real-time bidding is in China's near future but advertising operations have been built around planning and buying of fixed inventory," says UniQlick CEO Esther Yang. "The challenge for agencies and advertisers to maintain their current operations while preparing for a real-time future. The lack of uniform web advertising standards or a governing body like the Interactive Advertising Bureau causes very high administrative requirements for campaigns and impedes agencies' ability to focus on the data and its usage. "

With a modular feature-oriented design, On Demand requires minimal training and supports users' existing advertising operations. It is also a neutral buy-side solution that works side-by-side with various technologies. Users can plug into existing systems with a single user interface, making it easy for UniQlick customers to work with multiple third party partners. "We recognize that agencies and advertisers have significant relationships with multiple technology partners and our On Demand platform works in conjunction with those," said Yang. "On Demand has been created to allow our customers flexibility and choice."

With this round of investment, UniQlick will set up additional network infrastructure including real-time data analytic functions for its On Demand software platform. "By upgrading our infrastructure and including real-time analytics capabilities with our existing On Demand workflow solution, our customers can make more timely informed decisions," said Yang.

This round of new investment will also accelerate the release of the real-time features. On Demand already provides the ability to track data across multiple channels and campaigns helping agencies and advertisers overcome the challenge of data silos - a key obstacle to transitioning to real-time operations. The rapid rollout of real-time analytics and real-time bidding combined with sophisticated attribution modelling and algorithms means customer's data becomes the powerful new currency in China's digital landscape.