Traditionally, companies looking to get an ad in front of online customers have had to publish through Google Ads or Facebook Ads.
But a Durham-based AdTech company is reframing how companies run in-house advertisements and ultimately build new ad revenue streams.
Kevel, which just rebranded from Adzerk, also announced a new $11 million in Series A funding round to fuel new growth, according to a post on the company’s website.
The round was led by Atlanta-based Fulcrum Equity and San Francisco-based Commerce Ventures.
“Kevel’s mission is to provide ad serving APIs that offer publishers more freedom to build what they want; more action to start making new revenue quickly, and more humanity to monetize with ads that aren’t terrible,” Founder and CEO James Avery wrote on the company blog.
Avery says the name change reflects that the company has grown and evolved since its launch 11 years ago, giving rise to its enterprise software solutions. “This is a name we can make our own, and it sets the stage for the next phase of our growth as an API infrastructure platform,” he added.
Kevel is leveraged by brands looking for in-house ad revenue options such as sponsored listings, native ads, internal promotions, podcast ads, and other performance marketing tools. This means brands can ultimately move away from reliance on Google or Facebook in order to run ads.
Some of Kevel’s biggest clients to date include Ticketmaster, Strava, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and United Airlines.
Philip Lewis, Partner at Fulcrum, told Hypepotamus that what “initially caught our attention was the breadth of the technology [Kevel] had built. When we dug in, we were blown away by the power of the API infrastructure they had built.”
Lewis added that Kevel has positioned itself well moving into 2021. “Kevel has a definite lead in the market now, and the team is going to use our investment to both accelerate continued product development as well as build a larger sales engine to get their API into the hands of more companies and developers.”