StackAdapt Announces $1M in Series A Funding to Build on Success of Native Advertising Platform

Toronto, ON – January 28, 2016 – StackAdapt (www.stackadapt.com), a native advertising platform that helps Fortune 500 brands and agencies reach new audiences through their branded content, announced they’ve closed a growth round led by Plaza Ventures, a Toronto-based VC firm that has invested in over 50 technology companies since 1998. The company will use the investment to scale its self-serve demand-side native advertising platform, and to add to its team.

“We’re excited to announce this strategic relationship with Plaza Ventures since they have a deep understanding of the technology and ad tech ecosystem,” said Ildar Shah, Co-Founder of StackAdapt. “Brands and agencies have readily adopted our native ads solution since launch, and we plan to use this funding to scale the self-serve platform and help them drive more meaningful interactions with their branded content.”

StackAdapt works with a growing number of clients from verticals including travel and technology, who have launched over 1,500 native advertising campaigns on the self-serve platform to promote branded content. StackAdapt’s clients include AdZouk, Iowa Tourism, and m2, an agency owned by IPG. In order to meet demand from brand and agency customers, the company plans to hire across all functions in its Toronto office, including product, tech, customer success, sales, and marketing.

“As brands look for more meaningful ways to reach customers, it’s clear that native advertising adds more value than banner ads, which are increasingly ignored,” said Rob Richards, Managing Partner at Plaza Ventures. “StackAdapt has created a best-in-class platform with unique functionality and scalability, and we’re excited to partner with them to expand their presence in the ad tech space.” Mr. Richards is joining StackAdapt’s Board of Directors.

StackAdapt has partnered with over 30 major native advertising exchanges including TripleLift, AdsNative, InMobi, and European native advertising company Adyoulike, making it one of the world’s largest buying platform for distributing branded content. The company’s platform accesses native ad inventory across over 35,000 publisher sites including ABC News, Reuters, USA Today and Popular Science. Clients use the platform on a self-serve basis and can access the global supply of native advertising from a single intuitive interface.

In November, StackAdapt released benchmarks highlighting the effectiveness of native ads compared to display ads. Research showed that ads placed through StackAdapt have an average click-through rate of 0.4-0.8 per cent, which is around 10x higher than the average 0.06 per cent click-through rate on display ads (Smart Insights).

About Plaza Ventures

Plaza Ventures invests in Series A financing of high-growth technology companies with a unique rolling micro-fund model. The PV Investment Partner Program co-invests angel capital with corporate and institutional capital alongside other VCs and family offices, and applies the experience of angel LPs to build enterprise value. Plaza Ventures has invested in early stage funds and accelerators across Canada and has completed follow-on investments in graduates from these programs. Read more about Plaza Ventures at PlazaVentures and on their LinkedIn page.

About StackAdapt

StackAdapt is one of the world’s leading native advertising platforms, providing brands and agencies a single access point for the global supply of native advertising, both via in-feed ads and content recommendation widgets. StackAdapt has worked with some of the most notable Fortune 500 companies and agencies since its launch in 2013. StackAdapt was started by Ildar Shar, Vitaly Pecherskiy and Yang Han, and is based in Toronto, Canada. Learn more at www.stackadapt.com.