Google has teamed up with advertising and marketing company WPP’s portfolio company again with its in-house venture capital division backing the fourth round of funding for Invidi Technologies Corp.
Google Ventures, the $100m corporate venturing arm of the online search engine company, led the more than $23m raised in Invidi’s D round.
GroupM, a unit of WPP, Motorola Ventures, the in-house venture arm of the telecoms maker, and US venture capital firms Menlo Ventures, InterWest Partners and EnerTech Capital all returned in the funding round along with Westbury Equity Partners, BDC Capital and others.
Shishir Mehrotra, director of product management for Google TV Ads and YouTube Ads, has joined Invidi’s board of directors. David Downey, chief executive of Invidi, which news provider VentureWire reported has raised more than $85m in funding since 2000, said: "Google and GroupM share our vision that addressability will transform television advertising by increasing effectiveness and eliminating wasted reach."
In July, Google joined up with Visible World, a New York-based technology company backed by WPP that uses software to create multiple versions of a given ad, to combine the technology with its Google TV Ads, an automated auction-based system for buying ads.
Visible World, had raised $25m of C round funding in May 2008 from corporate venturers Marketing Services Risk Surety, the Bermudan insurance subsidiary of WPP, Comcast Interactive Capital, Grey Ventures, Time Warner, Leucadia National and Viacom as well as financial investors Adams Street Partners, AllianceBernstein and Dawntreader Ventures.