Venture Capital Firms

Investors, Blackberry Partners Fund and GrandBanks Capital Invest $4 Million in Series A Funding for Nexage

Leading mobile advertising provider, Nexage announced today that it had closed $4 million in series A funding from the Blackberry Fund and GrandBanks Capital. Proceeds from this round of funding will go to expanding the company’s mobile advertising platform by scaling it to meet the growth in the mobile advertising industry.

Nexage is a leader in mobile advertising and allows companies to maximize their advertising revenues by using an effective mobile advertising platform. Some of Nexage’s flagship products is the AdMax Gateway, which is an ad optimization platform that is hosted and allows carriers and advertisers to completely control and monetize their mobile advertising channels. Nexage’s AdMax Gateway platform can serve most ad media on mobile phones today, including text, banners, in-applications, and video advertisements with much higher fill rates than previously achieved.

Along with this round of funding, Nexage also announced that Mike Baker will be appointed the chairman of the company’s board of directors. Mr. Baker is a veteran in the mobile communications industry. Along with Mr. Baker, others will also join Nexage’s board of directors, who are Matt Golden, partner with Blackberry Partners Fund; and Ryan Moore, partner with GrandBanks Capital.

Mr. Baker will be a great asset to Nexage because while working for Nokia, he was the company’s vice president and he also worked for Nokia Interactive, which is Nokia’s mobile advertising arm that was formed when Nokia acquired Enpocket, where Mr. Baker was both a founding investor and CEO.

According to Mr. Baker, the potential for mobile advertising is quite big, and in order to fulfill its full potential; the industry needs the types of technologies that Nexage has to offer. The unique thing about Nexage’s platform is that it enables both media sellers and buyers to reach a targeted audience at a scaleable rate. Furthermore, not all cellphones are the same. Some are basic and the only way that advertisers are able to reach their audience with simple text SMS messages, whereas others are more advanced, like the Blackberry or the Apple iPhone. Both of these phones are more like pocket computers and have a more vivid display that can allow for advertisements to be either text, banners, applications, or even video. Furthermore the ability to have media companies cut costs through the AdMax Gateway is another positive for Nexage.

AdMax Gateway is unique in that it enables media companies to save money by being able to interconnect with other networks and is also in use by advertisers and publishers worldwide.

The Blackberry Partners Fund is the vc arm of Blackberry and was established to deliver investments which are compelling in the mobile applications industry. The fund is designed to invest in innovative companies which develop and commercialize applications for smart phones, such as the Blackberry. Other companies in the Blackberry Partners Fund’s portfolio include Buzzd, Digby, Neuralitic, Worldmate, Xobni, and others.

GrandBanks Capital is a vc firm which has a geographic area of focus in the Eastern United States and Canada. GrandBanks mainly focuses on early stage companies in the tech industry. GrandBanks Capital was originally established in a partnership with SOFTBANK Corporation, which is a known investor in the software, security and business applications, media and wireless technology, and financial industries. Some other companies in GrandBanks Capital’s portfolio include Enpocket, SendMe.com, I Love Rewards, and others.

For more information about Nexage, click here.

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