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Balderton invests in online ads marketplace

The venture capital company in which ex-Digifone chief executive Barry Maloney is a partner, Balderton Capital, has taken a multimillion dollar investment in Europe’s first online advertising marketplace AdJug.com. The investment includes participation from Espotting founder Seb Bishop and will see TradeDoubler vice-president Rene Rechtmann join AdJug.com’s board.

Balderton has already invested in technology and internet firms Bebo, Globoforce, NewBay Software, Alphyra and Innerworkings. In recent weeks the company accelerated its investment cycle to invest in games firm Codemasters and online news platform Daylife. AdJug, which will initially focus on the UK before targeting the rest of Europe, aims to bring better efficiencies to the way online advertising is bought and sold and provides access to online advertising inventories as well as publishers.

In contrast to the way online ads are bought and sold through Google or Yahoo! AdJug’s advertisers will be able to choose the location that adverts are displayed on a web page and determine the exact price they will pay for traffic. Publishers can also define how much an advertiser pays ‘per click’, optimising the method of deriving value from their online ad space.

'Online media is commanding a greater proportion of marketing budgets all the time and the corporate activity in the sector highlights the growing importance of this segment of the industry,' explained Klaus Hommels, venture partner at Balderton Capital. 'AdJug’s innovative approach to matching advertisers and publishers will stand them in good stead as they look to develop the business and compete with the larger industry players.'