• June 23, 2010

Triggit, which provides technology that helps advertisers buy media using real-time bidding, has secured $4.2 million in a first-round venture funding from Spark Capital and Foundry Group. The San Francisco-based company said it would use the financing to expand staff and begin international expansion.

Joining the round through conversion of the prior investments are angel backers including Joe Speiser and Alex Zhardanovsky, founders of Epic Advertising; Applied Sematics founder Gilad Elbaz, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and Internet investor Joi Ito.

Triggit's software allows advertisers buying on real-time ad exchanges to manage and track media buys that take place in an automated auction process at the rate of over 100,000 times per second. The company's technology will analyze data such as Web site content as well as the location, age and gender of users to bid on precisely the impressions that meet an advertiser's target audience criteria.

Seth Levine, a managing director at Foundry Group, and Santo Politi, a general partner at Spark Capital, will join the Triggit board as part of the investment. --Mark Walsh