FreeWheel Raises $12M to Manage Video Ads

One of the companies featured in the story we did yesterday about monetizing unauthorized uploads has closed new round of funding. San Mateo, Calif.-based FreeWheel raised a $12 million Series C round led by Foundation Capital and including existing investor Battery Ventures, which had provided its two previous funding rounds of undisclosed amounts.

The startup has 15 content providers and 15 ad networks signed to its “monetization rights management” platform, which manages the complicated ad inventory issues for online video distribution.

We had written about a particular aspect of its business that concerns applying this platform to user-uploaded versions of copyright holders’ videos. FreeWheel has recently cut deals with fingerprinting firms Vobile and Attributor to find and identify such videos, so then FreeWheel can figure out whose ads to run on them.

FreeWheel, which was founded by former DoubleClick executives, currently has 70 employees.