Jivox Gets $10.7M for Local Web Video Ads

Local business video ad platform Jivox said today that it’s raised $10.7 million in first-round funding from Opus Capital and Helion Venture Partners. Jivox claims strong growth, but it also appears that it has lowered its video advertising CPM prices since launching in March.

The San Mateo, Calif.–based company had previously raised $2.7 million from Opus Capital. It said it would use the additional funding for product development, sales and marketing.

As we’ve commented before, Jivox is sort of like Spot Runner for the web, so even its large amount of capital at this early stage doesn’t hold a candle to Spot Runner’s $111 million. Jivox’s competitors include One True Media, TurnHere and, more broadly, small business ad platforms that aren’t oriented around video, like Google’s.

Jivox also said today that it’s signed a group of new publishers including Brown Publishing, ExpoTV, AOL India, Sulekha.com and Reliance Entertainment’s Bigadda.com. The company claims access to 40 million unique viewers across its network.

When we spoke to Jivox CEO Diaz Nesamoney last week, he shared a few interesting progress checks:

• Jivox had initially said it would charge $10 to $40 CPMs. Diaz quoted us $5 to $30 as the current range.
• About 30 percent of Jivox advertisers decline to use Jivox’s stock library to create their ads, opting to supply their own video instead.
• Jivox will introduce premium services that allow advertisers to download their ads for their own use as well as automatically disseminate ads to sites like YouTube.