Avazu a Shanghai-headquartered digital marketing agency, secured $48 million of Series A financing from Gaorong Capital, unnamed Internet giants and U.S. Internet fund (source in Chinese). The capital will be used in research and development as well as acquisitions of companies with relevant businesses, according to Shi Yi, founder and CEO of the firm.
The company’s product portfolio includes three performance marketing platforms, namely Avazu DSP (real-time auction ad exchange platform), Avazu Tracking (cross-platform ad performance tracking system) and Avazu Private Exchange (private ad exchange).
It applies real time bidding (RTB) into Avazu DSP platform, allowing buyers and advertisers to achieve higher campaign efficiency through impression-based bidding, using intelligent data of time, frequency, content, behavior, interest, price etc. for each impression.
Avazu’s partners include both domestic Internet giants like Tencent, Baidu and International companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. The company has established offices in Beijing, Tokyo, Amsterdam and planned to branch into New York, Berlin, Seoul and London in future three to six months.
Shi Yi said the company is well-positioned to take the challenge of mobile social marketing in technology. He disclosed that mobile business account for 50% of total business in last year and this figure is expected to hit 80% in 2014.
