VideoAmp, a US-based measurement provider, has announced it has raised $150 million in a Series G funding round led by Vista Credit Partners. The company says the fresh funding will help fuel growth as it pushes its TV currency among agencies and broadcasters.
As the ‘Series G’ label suggests, VideoAmp has raises significant sums over the years. Most recently, it raised $275 million in its Series F funding round back in 2021. That round of funding brought VideoAmp’s valuation up to $1.4 billion, according to the company’s own calculations.
The company has been using this funding to compete for a bigger slice of the US TV measurement market. Nielsen, the company whose currency has backed most TV trading in the US for decades, has started to look vulnerable. Agencies and broadcasters have complained that it hasn’t been quick enough to adapt to streaming. And several on the buy-side have been investing more in outcome-based measurement, looking for currency-grade outcome metrics.
VideoAmp believes both these factors work in its favour. Its TV measurement is derived from a mix of data sets including set-top box data and automatic content recognition (ACR) data taken from smart TVs. These datasets together enable measurement of both linear TV and streaming on TV sets, and offer a larger overall footprint – VideoAmp says it covers nearly 40 million households, compared with Nielsen’s national TV panel of under 50,000.
And by tying this data to various outcome measures, VideoAmp says advertisers can measure the effectiveness of their TV campaigns too.
From compliment to competitor
Historically, brands and agencies working with these kinds of metrics have used them as a compliment to Nielsen data, rather than as a currency to underpin TV deals. But as more buyers and sellers experiment with alternative currencies and multi-currency strategies, VideoAmp has begun pushing its metrics as an alternative to Nielsen’s.
At present, VideoAmp says that thirteen major linear and streaming publishers use its measurement and currency solutions, alongside “all major media holding companies”, several independent agencies, and over 75 advertisers. And the company says that the fresh funding round demonstrates investors’ confidence that adoption of alternative currencies will continue to grow.
“VideoAmp’s advanced currency is poised to increase advertiser ROI and provide a more accurate way to value a publisher’s content,” said Paul Ross, VideoAmp’s CFO. “This round of funding from Vista Credit Partners will support our strategy and commitment to both currency and further establishing our overall category leadership.”
VideoAmp isn’t the only business eyeing up Nielsen’s crown. Just yesterday iSpot.tv, another alternative currency gaining significant traction amongst buyers and sellers, acquired fellow TV measurement business 605 for an undisclosed fee. That deal expands iSpot’s measurement footprint to over 82 million, strengthening its own currency offering.
