Flite, a US-based paid media publishing company, has raised $9m funding led by Iris Capital, the venture capital investment company sponsored by France-based communications company Publicis Groupe and France-based mobile telecommunications company Orange, with participation from Flite’s existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and US-based magazine publisher Condé Nast.
Flite has also signed a partnership with Vivaki, the digital advertising subsidiary of Publicis Groupe, to roll out the Flite platform to the Publicis Groupe network of advertising agencies. The Flite advertising platform allows agencies to distribute their clients’ digital marketing content through paid media channels with real-time updates to live campaigns.
Rishad Tobaccowala, VivaKi chief strategy and innovation officer, said: “Next generation storytelling is a key focus for Publicis Groupe, and Flite will allow our clients to publish content and tell stories that leverage social, mobile and API’s, and do so in a cost effective and agile way. Recent acquisitions of similar companies were quite bullish (Buddy Media for $745m and Vitrue for $300m). Flite is in an even better strategic position in the market of paid media publishing. This market is still in its infancy, with potential to be massive.”
Denis Barrier, partner at Iris Capital Management, said, “We are excited about Flite’s current success in the marketplace, and are fully convinced that their technology represents where the industry is going in the long run.”
Will Price, chief executive officer of Flite, said. “The partnership with VivaKi and the investment by Iris Capital/Publicis are a huge commercial, financial, and institutional validation of Flite’s work with the world’s top brands.”