Singapore-based ad tech firm eyes regional markets

ADSKOM, a Singapore-based programmatic advertising startup, has raised SG$1.06 million in seed-round funding from investors Digital Garage, East Ventures, Beenos Plaza and Skystar Capital.ADSKOM provides programmatic advertising platforms to help ad-buyers reach their audience more efficiently, and to help publishers increase revenues. With close to 40 people, Adskom is led by Daniel Armanto (pictured right), CTO of the company and CEO Italo Gani (pictured left). Launched in April 2013, ADSKOM is dedicated to developing a programmatic platform customised for the ASEAN market. The investment will be used to fund the development of its new data management platform and also for expansion into Southeast Asia, with Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia as the priority markets.Adskom is planning a Series A funding round in early 2015. In second quarter of 2013, Adskom also received initial seed funding from Rebright Partners, a venture capital firm in Japan. The funding was key to the development of Adskom‘s Supply-Side Platform (SSP) that was focused on working with publishers. It currently manages approximately 500 million impressions per month and is projected to handle more than one billion impressions per month in first quarter of 2015.“Digital advertising in Asia today is at an inflection point, with marketers and advertisers turning to programmatic advertising to shape their strategies, as well as evaluate campaigns. With this new funding we will expand our programmatic advertising solutions in Indonesia and other markets in Southeast Asia and build our next-generation platforms focused on data management,” Gani said.“With the biggest market share for programmatic advertising solutions in Indonesia, and working with top premium publishers in the region, we are positioned to take advantage of this market opportunity presented by the rapid expansion of programmatic advertising in Southeast Asia,” Gani added.In Indonesia, ADSKOM works with publishers such as Kompas.com, Kapanlagi.com, Detik.com, Okezone.com and Liputan6.com.“Southeast Asia’s smartphone penetration is on an upswing, making it a favourable region in which to invest. Partnering with Adskom serves to capture this growing momentum. We believe the team has the expertise, product set and traction to be the category leader for programmatic advertising in Southeast Asia” Fumihiko Ishimaru, COO of DG Incubation, the investment arm of Digital Garage said.According to a report by Magna Global, Asia will have the fastest programmatic growth in 2014 (73%) with a total spend of over US$500 million. Singapore and Malaysia will be the highest growth countries. eMarketer predicts advertisers in Asia-Pacific will spend US$152 billion on all paid media channels this year, with digital advertising seeing an increase of US$40 billion.It also works with close to 70 demand side partners that are very active in the Southeast Asia market, including Tubemogul, Criteo, Vserv.mobi, DoubleClick Bid Managers and others. The brands that run campaigns using Adskom’s platforms in Indonesia include P&G, Unilever, Bank Central Asia (BCA) Indonesia’s biggest bank, pharmaceutical group Combiphar and more. Well known global agencies like the WPP group, Aegis Dentsu Networks, Omnicom, Starcom, DM Pratama also partner with ADSKOM to bring real-time bidding technology to Southeast Asia.