TubeMogul raises $10M for video platform

The round of equity funding brings the company's total funds raised to over $15M

Article has been corrected to account for TubeMogul's announcement that the company has raised $10 million, not $1 million as previously stated.

TubeMogul, an online video advertising and analytics platform, has raised $10 million in Series B funding, the company announced Friday.  The round was led by Foundation Capital, with participation from previous investors Trinity Ventures and Knights Bridge Capital Partners.  The Emeryville, Calif.-based startup was created by MBA students Brett Wilson and John Hughes in an entrepreneurship class at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 2006, and has since raised over $15 million in capital.

“TubeMogul has increased revenues 300% yearly since inception while being extremely capital efficient,” said Ajay Chopra,General Partner from Trinity Ventures, in the company's press release.

The company, which now has more than 150,000 users, lets publishers syndicate and track their online videos across several different websites.  Among the company’s product offerings is OneLoad, a feature that allows publishers to upload a video and distribute it to all of the top video and social networking sites in one go.

TubeMogul’s analytics offerings have also proven very attractive to publishers, who are drawn in by the ability to track how many views their videos are getting, who is watching, where viewers are located, how long they are watching the videos, and more.  TubeMogul’s analytics offerings were strengthened by the company’s 2008 acquisition of Illuminex, a flash-based analytics company that tracks how much of a video is watched, at what point a viewer leaves, which of the video segments are the most popular, overall minutes watched, and viewer behavior.

The platform has attracted a number of big name clients, including HBO, The New York Times, CBS, Symantec, The Onion, GreenPeace, The CATO Institute, Warner Music, NASA, The U.S. Army, and even the White House.  Also included in those ranks is the YouTube phenomenon Fred…that kid with the high-pitched, squeaky voice who talks really fast… I’m not sure if that wins them any points.  Including the White House and Fred in the same group certainly seems a little…lopsided.

The company’s last round of funding was in April 2009, when it raised $3 million in a round led by Trinity Ventures, at which point general partner Ajay Chopra joined the TubeMogul board.

The startup faces some stiff competition from competing online video advertising and analytics platforms like Ooyala, which raised $22 million in financing in September from the CID Group and Itochu Technology.  Brightcove is another major competitor in the field, but last week TubeMogul and Brightcove announced a partnership that would bring integration with TubeMogul’s OneLoad video distribution service to Brightcove’s platform.

TubeMogul seems geared up for the competition, though.  Last month the company’s video advertising platform PlayTime ranked at number two in comScore’s analysis of Potential Reach among ad-focused sites.  PlayTime runs over 180 brands’ ad campaigns and has seen over 800 million views from 206,710,000 unique viewers, according to the company’s press release. 

The company plans to use the new funds to bolster its PlayTime ad platform.  Additionally, Ashu Garg, partner at Foundation Capital, will join the TubeMogul board, along with existing members Ajay Chopra, Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, and David Toth, founder of NetRatings.

Image source: tubemogul.com