Crisp raises $6 million to expand rich ads

Meritage Funds, Intel Capital and EDBI fund Crisp Media's expansion into Asia via Singapore office

Rich media advertising company Crisp Media announced Thursday that it has raised $6 million in growth capital from existing investors Meritage Funds and Intel Capital, along with EDBI, an investment firm headquartered in Singapore. The funding is intended, in part, to fuel Crisp’s international expansion, particularly in Asia, where the mobile market is flourishing with phones and tablets.

“The decision to locate its Asian headquarters in Singapore accelerates the rollout of Crisp’s solutions to its customers and partners in Asia, and strongly positions Crisp to ride the wave of rapidly growing demand for smart mobile devices in Asia,” Ms Chu Swee-Yeok, CEO of EDBI.

Crisp’s business is all about creating rich ads that run across all devices and platforms: desktops, mobile applications, tablets, connected TVs, you name it.

Mobile display advertising campaigns from Crisp have run across publisher sites as well-known as CBS, CNN, ESPN and Yahoo as well as top ad networks like Jumptap, Millennial and Mojiva. To date, Crisp has produced ads for Intel, Microsoft, Thompson Reuters and Estée Lauder, among many others.

Most recently, Crisp launched Engage, a self-service ad management platform that lets one build and manage rich media campaigns all from one place. No HTML5 experience is required in Engage to create campaigns optimized for multiple platforms. The software does its best to decrease the number of required test cycles and make sure completed campaigns comply with mobile standards

Last November, the Weather Channel, Crisp and TringApps unveiled ORMMA, the Open Rich Media Mobile Advertising initiative, which provides publishers with rich media advertising specifications and open source code so they can better serve up campaigns on mobile and elsewhere.

Besides its new Asia expansion, Crisp says it will use its newly announced funding to drive further growth and development of Engage.