StrikeAd raises $500,000 and moves to New York

Mobile advertising business StrikeAd has locked down the second stage of its Series A fundraising, adding $500,000 (£319,000) to its coffers from three US investors.

The initial stage of its first institutional fundraising occurred back in January when the company raised £2 million from venture capital firm DFJ Esprit.

Back then the business, which helps advertisement agencies to plan and execute mobile phone marketing campaigns, had recently opened a new office in New York. On the back of its most recent funding round the business will now move its headquarters to the US city, but will keep its EMEA base in London.

New investors joining DFJ Esprit, and fellow existing backer Thomas Falk of eValue, include SoftTech VC, Siemer Ventures and angel investor Gil Elbaz, co-founder of Applied Semantics. The new equity capital will be used not only to expand its operations in the US but also to enhance its proprietary technology.

The business has developed a 'demand side platform' for mobile, which allows media buyers to create and deploy global mobile advertising campaigns based on targeted audience and user profiling.

StrikeAd CEO and founder Alex Rahaman says that mobile usage is booming and browsing the internet on multiple devices is the future.

He adds, 'The problem today is that buying mobile advertising is far too difficult and murky. This investment [...] will help us to capitalise on the huge market opportunity for mobile advertising technology that delivers far better transparency, information and returns in this new channel.’