Apptera secures $10.5 million for mobile-ad tech
Apptera, a company that delivers visual and voice advertising, announced on Wednesday that it has secured $10.5 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Alloy Ventures, and Walden International. The company also announced that former Yahoo senior executive David Karnstedt joined its board of directors.
According to the company, the new investment will be used to expand its mobile-advertising network and improve its MobileAd Xchange program, which allows advertisers to reach mobile-phone users.
Apptera has partnered with AT&T, AOL, and other technology platforms to deliver its ads, and it claims that it currently serves millions of advertisements each month. Most of those ads come in the form of commercials heard through free 411 services and AOL's Moviefone.
Funding and ad placement aside, Apptera still has one major issue to overcome: competition. Google and Microsoft have made it abundantly clear that mobile advertising is the next frontier, and both companies are exploring ways to corner the market. And although that probably won't happen for a few years, Apptera needs to ensure that it's ready when major companies enter the market.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
