Marin Banks $16 Million In Series E Funding

JohnKaelle

Marin Software plans to announce Wednesday that it has secured $16 million in Series E financing. Crosslink Capital led the round. Amicus Capital, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Focus Ventures and Triangle Peak Partners also participated.

The series E funding brings investments in the online advertising platform company to more than $50 million. Other investments include:

Series A: $5 million, 11/06

Series B: $7.25 million, 03/08

Series C: $13 million, 04/09

Series D: $11 million, 05/10

Eric Chin, partner at Crosslink Capital, will join Marin's board of directors, and John Kaelle, former Shutterfly VP of finance, joins Marin's team as executive vice president and CFO.

During his stint at Shutterfly, Kaelle managed company growth from 150 to more than 600 employees, revenue from $54 million to more than $300 million, and a successful IPO in 2006. Prior to Shutterfly, Kaelle held executive roles at Thomas Weisel Partners and TriNet Corporate Realty Trust, a publicly traded real estate investment trust.

Kaelle's appointment signals Marin's maturity and growth, as well as the need to more stringently adhere to operational processes as the company grows, according to Matt Lawson, Marin vice president of marketing. The company plans to add 100 employees this year to the existing 200 across engineering, marketing, operations and other business units.

Ongoing investments have enabled Marin to build out its platform to manage more than $2 billion in annual paid-search spend. It has campaigns running in 160 countries for about 800 ad agencies and advertisers. That number could expand as search marketers augment strategies with social.

Aside from supporting Facebook today, Lawson expects social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn to open their respective APIs. "We see geo-based search engines as an important area for many advertisers, so search engines like Yandex will become more important," he says.

In March, Marin launched a deal with Criteo to support retargeting, as well as Marin Professional Edition, a platform for advertisers and agencies spending less than $100,000 per month on paid search. A set-up wizard lets companies link directly to search engines. The application provides users with access to Marin's bidding app, providing optimization and automated keyword-level bidding according to pre-defined business goals.

 

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