• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, September 3, 2013

OpenX today announced the launch of its first office in Germany, located in Munich. The company has appointed Dimo Velev as regional director, DACH (Deutschland, Austria, Switzerland), a newly created position.

OpenX and Velev are bullish on the German market, calling it one of the top two markets in Western Europe. Velev told RTM Daily that he believes one needs to study the German market well in order to be successful in it, which is where he comes in. He was previously Manager, Business Development for Yahoo Germany, and Head of Business Development for InMobi Central & Eastern Europe. Velev mentioned that the team he will build up for OpenX's new office will mostly be organic -- because parachuting down one person from an outside market is "not how you are usually successful in Germany," he quipped.

While Velev will be building up a team and evangelizing OpenX solutions to German advertisers and publishers, the market at large has already adopted real-time bidding (RTB) advertising technologies. Velev told RTM Daily that RTB scooped up about 7 billion Euro in 2012 and accounted for 8-10% of Germany's entire digital advertising industry. "This number is growing," he said. "What we expect is more than significant growth until 2016. Something like 4000% [is] what we expect."

Velev also explained why the company picked Munich over other German cities, such as Berlin and Hamburg. "Germany is not centralized. You can start your business from any of these cities. Yahoo and Microsoft are both in Munich. Google is in Hamburg. Sony is in Berlin. It's spread over the country," he said.

The company already has some business partners in Germany, which is why they decided to put people on the ground an open an office there, but their number one goal is to get more German companies to adopt OpenX technologies. He called the German market "a bit more cautious" than others, but added, "Once this heavy machine starts to roll, you can't stop it." 

SAP, one of the largest global investors and an existing OpenX investor, backs the company's expansion into Germany. "The basis for our initial investment was to provide OpenX with an enhanced ability to develop its real-time bidding platform…," stated Nino Marakovic, CEO of SAP Ventures. "OpenX's expansion into Germany, SAP's global base, is an exciting development."

The opening of the office in Germany is part of OpenX's continued global expansion efforts. Earlier this year, OpenX opened an office in Japan, where they have since become a leading RTB exchange in that market.