Lotame gets US$15 million in funding

Lotame, an independent data management platform (DMP), has announced that it has secured US$15 million in Series D funding.The round was led by Sozo Ventures and TrueBridge Capital Partners, with substantial participation from existing investors Battery Ventures, Emergence Capital Partners and RJ Finlay & Co.  Combined with previous funding rounds, Lotame has now raised a total of US$44 million. The additional financing will allow Lotame to accelerate the development of its innovative real-time, cross-device data platform.Within the last year, Lotame’s customer base grew by 139% and recurring revenue grew by 117 %. In the last quarter of 2013 alone, Trinity Mirror, Media Crossing, ESPN Australia, Wego.com, and SingTel among others selected Lotame to manage and activate their audience data. Lotame also introduced several significant upgrades, including Lotame Insights, Lotame Optimizer and the Lotame Mobile DMP Suite.“DMPs are beginning to gain significant traction among marketers and publishers around the world who recognize that the Big Data revolution in advertising and digital marketing has arrived,” said Phil Wickham, managing director of Sozo Ventures.Global expansion was also a priority in 2013, as Lotame established new regional headquarters in the United Kingdom and Singapore, and increased its worldwide employee base by more than 20%.  To meet the needs of global customers, the platform was also enhanced to enable data collection in Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and Indian languages.The company has also hired Zach Boisi as vice president of client operations.  Boisi will oversee all aspects of client implementation and success management, including client adoption, engagement, usage, retention and growth.  Previously, Boisi held leadership positions at Sears, Network Solutions and newBrandAnalytics.“We believe DMPs can be the vehicle to deliver a seamless way for marketers and publishers to consistently reach and engage individuals across smartphones, desktops, tablets and television,” said Andy Monfried, founder and CEO of Lotame.  “This new round of funding will allow us to continue to invest and deliver on this mission, creating tremendous value for our customers, employees and shareholders.”