Millennial Media Raises $27.5 Million
Money will be used for acquisitions and growth, particularly in Europe and Asia.
Further proving 2011 is thus far a hot year for digital ad firm fundraising, mobile advertising company Millennial Media has raised $27.5 million, bringing its capital to date to $65 million.
Millennial declined to comment on whether this was a Series D round. However, its most recent round was a $16-million Series C financing in 2009.
Previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Charles River Ventures and New Enterprise Associates participated. Millennial declined to name a lead investor.
The company’s website also lists Acta Wireless among its prior investors.
Proceeds will be used for growth, particularly in Europe and Asia, according to Mack McKelvey, SVP of marketing. The round will also fund further acquisitions. The company acquired mobile analytics company TapMetrics last year.
“In 2010, our business grew at an accelerated pace. We reached operational profitability, while growing revenue by [three times] as compared to 2009,” said Millennial CEO Paul Palmieri (pictured] in a written statement. “We launched formal operations in Europe… We have also made some early steps in Asia/Pacific that we expect to build upon aggressively in 2011.”
Palmieri added the company has further invested in its technology platform, which supports Millennial’s mobile ad network as well as ad programs operated by partners.
Millennial said its U.S. mobile ad network business reaches more than 85 percent of mobile Web users in the country and serves more than 17 billion mobile ad impressions each month. Its customers include McDonalds, Paramount Pictures, Lexus, Coca-Cola, Stella McCartney and Microsoft.
According to the Millennial website, directors include Palmieri; Wenda Harris Millard, president of Media Link; Patrick Kerins, general partner at NEA; Bob Goodman, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners; George Zachary, partner at Charles River Ventures; Jay Markley, venture partner at Columbia Capital; and Alan MacIntosh, managing partner at Acta Capital. McKelvey said there were no changes as a result of the most recent round.
Founded in 2006, Millennial had 100 employees as of December 2010 and plans to hire another “50-plus” in 2011, according to McKelvey.
