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Ad technology firm Amagi is looking at fresh round of funding to bolster its platform as it announced the launch of Amagi MIX — a B2B online media planning and buying commerce platform for small and medium regional advertisers.
“We are in talks to raise Series D funds from new and existing investors. We are growing 100 per cent on a year-on-year basis,” Baskar Subramanian, co-founder, Amagi, said without divulging the amount it plans to raise.
The company, which runs the country’s largest geo-targeted ad network, counts Premji Invest and Mayfield Funds as investors. The company has raised $25 million till date.
Speaking about Amagi MIX, which will go live on Thursday, Subramanian said: “Our research showed that SMEs don’t have access to quality media planning and buying. In our survey done recently on 100-plus SME advertisers to check their readiness of online media buying, at least 56 per cent of them prefer TV as a mode of advertising, but 65 per cent of them shy away from advertising on TV because of cost and 30 per cent because of lack of knowledge of the TV advertising process and difficulty in finding a trusted media agency. One of other interesting revelations was that 65 per cent were open to the idea of online TV media buying.”
He said the platform aims to help advertisers create television media plans and launch television campaigns with ease and at an affordable cost. Subramanian said the algorithm allows users to create media plans based on the target group, priority markets and budget. Users can choose from over 50 channels which are either regional or national channels but targeted to a specific region.
Regional viewing The company said it is also seeing a marked shift towards regional language viewing.
Subramanian said that between March 2014 and February 2016, the share of regional channels went up from 35.04 per cent to 38.46 per cent. “International brands such as GlaxoSmithKline (which owns brands like Horlicks), Amazon and P&G have increased their ad spends in regional media because the competition they are facing is increasingly local.”
Currently, Amagi works with over 2,500 advertisers including GSK, Wipro and ITC . The company has offices internationally. In India, it competes with Star-owned AdSharp which also undertakes geo-targeted advertising.
Correction
This news report has been amended to correct factual errors. Amagi is in talks to raise Series D funds, not Series B as an earlier version stated. Also, the company has raised $25 million till date, not $12 million.
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