• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, September 11, 2008

Silicon Valley ad network Turn Inc. has opened a four-person New York office to serve as its East Coast headquarters. Jim Clark, the company's regional vice president for East Coast sales, will lead the branch, which is expected to add two more people by year's end.

Co-founded in 2005 by former AltaVista CEO Jim Barnett, the Turn network now encompasses more than 500 advertisers and 3,000 sites. It aims to stand apart from myriad competitors by combining contextual, audience, behavioral, and other targeting methods to serve the optimal ad placement.

"We've become a top 20 ad platform generating over 2.5 billion monthly impressions with 94 million unique users per month," said Barnett in a statement. "The opening of our New York office validates our national growth strategy and commitment to this important market."

Prior to joining Turn, Clark was director of the network sales team, and worked at Right Media before its acquisition by Yahoo. Brendon Gallagher, previously with Tacoda and Miva, was recently hired as senior sales account executive for the East Coast region.

Turn last month closed $15 million in third-round funding led by Focus Ventures, and has raised $37 million in venture financing to date.