BlueLithium pulls in $11.5 million

Online advertising network BlueLithium has raised $11.5 million in funding from WaldenVC, among others, in a sign of continuing momentum for Internet ad services. As part of the investment, Rich LeFurgy, a partner at WaldenVC and co-founder of the trade group Interactive Advertising Bureau, will join BlueLithium's board. David Silverman, partner at 3i, another investor in the round of financing, also will sit on the board.

San Jose, Calif.-based BlueLithium, founded in 2004, sells display ads across a thousand sites on the Internet that marketers pay for based on the ads' performance, a genre popularized by Google and the multibillion-dollar search industry. BlueLithium competes with more established players ValueClick and Advertising.com, which America Online bought last year. In 2000, Gurbaksh Chahal, BlueLithium CEO and founder, sold his online ad company ClickAgents to ValueClick. BlueLithium plans to use the funds to expand into Europe.