Vantage Media, a leader in performance-based search engine marketing and online lead generation, recently announced it has completed a $70 million Series A preferred financing led by Montgomery & Co. Scale Venture Partners, Tudor Ventures and Integral Capital Partners also participated in the round.

Vantage Media also announced that it has named Steve Jillings as Chief Executive Officer. Jillings is the former CEO of Frontbridge Technologies, a leading email security company acquired by Microsoft Corporation in August 2005. Jamie Montgomery, CEO of Montgomery & Co., and Rory O'Driscoll, Managing Director with Scale Venture Partners, join the board.

“The addition of Steve and key members of his Frontbridge management team, along with our new investors, will allow Vantage Media to continue its rapid growth while maintaining its market leadership,” said Mark DiPaola, founder and President of Vantage Media. “We are thrilled to partner with such an experienced team and believe that our clients will see immediate benefits as the company enters a new level of growth.”

“Mark and I have built a great relationship over the past year, and I look forward to working with him and his team to leverage the company's skills and proven technology platform,” said Steve Jillings. “This validates Vantage Media's successful search engine marketing solution for the education marketplace, and speaks volumes for the company's growth potential across new markets.”

“Paid search is the biggest recipient of the rapid shift of traditional ad spending to the online market,” said Jamie Montgomery, CEO of Montgomery & Co. “However, the complexities and costs involved with running a paid search campaign are substantial. We believe Vantage Media's performance-based model will ultimately allow almost any business to benefit from paid search cost-effectively.”

“Search-based internet marketing is the fastest growing, most effective advertising medium in the last fifty years, and businesses that enable potential advertisers to easily utilize this medium will be very successful,” said Rory O'Driscoll, Managing Director of Scale Venture Partners. “Mark and his team have built a strong company, and with the addition of Steve Jillings, an entrepreneur Scale VP has successfully backed before, Vantage is well positioned to accelerate its momentum in the space.”

Founded in 2002, Vantage Media was one of the first companies to offer search marketing solutions on a performance basis. As an early customer of both Google and Yahoo, Vantage has gained unique insight into the inner-workings of these search engines and how to harness them to benefit its clients. Vantage currently manages more than 40 million keywords yielding over one billion impressions per year, and is one of the largest providers of search-based marketing leads for educational institutions.

Since its inception, Vantage Media has grown each year without external financing or acquisitions. Vantage is unique in its focus on high quality leads from search engines, versus lower-quality alternatives. Vantage Media is based in Venice, California.

For more information, please visit www.vantagemedia.com