US-based marketing software provider OpenWeb has secured $150m in series E funding from investors including electronics manufacturer Samsung, media group The New York Times Company, advertising agency Dentsu and insurance provider Harel.
Venture capital firm Insight Partners co-led the round alongside Georgian Partners and it was filled out by Entrée Capital and private investors Scott Galloway and Omer Cygler at a $1bn valuation. Samsung invested through its Samsung Next unit.
Founded in 2012 as Spot.im, OpenWeb has created a platform which allows publishers and media companies to manage comments and user interactions to strengthen engagement with customers.
Nadav Shoval, OpenWeb’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “This series E marks a big step forward in our mission to improve online conversations.
“The future of a sustainable open web depends on the ability to facilitate safe experiences, while empowering destinations to build first-party data relationships with their audiences. We raised this round of investment to double down on our mission and to bring those safer experiences to new verticals and new markets.”
Insight Partners has also led a $25m series D round for the company in April 2019 that included Cerca, Altair Capital, Norma Investments and WGI Group, as well as a $25m series C that included Norma Investments and Altair Capital two years earlier.
Altair Capital and Norma Investments also backed OpenWeb’s $13m series A round in 2016 alongside private investors including James Hilton, Avishai Abrahami, Giora Kaplan, Nir Zohar, Brian Bedol and Ran Tushia. Details of its series B round the same year could not be ascertained.
