Brief:
- Dataseat, a tech startup that helps advertisers manage mobile app campaigns in-house, launched after its second fundraising round, according to materials provided to Mobile Marketer. The company raised £1.75 million ($2.3 million) from Play Ventures, Backed.vc and Saatchiinvest. Former Criteo CEO Eric Eichmann and CPO Jonathan Wolf participated in the funding round, per an announcement.
- Dataseat's clients include Social Point, creator of the "Dragon City" and "Monster Legends" gaming apps, and Jam City, developer of the "Panda Pop" and Disney’s "Frozen Adventures" mobile games. Dataseat also works with M&C Saatchi Performance, whose clients include Amazon's Audible, Zappos and ZipCar.
- Dataseat started 12 months ago to cater to global brands that license its demand side platform (DSP) for programmatic media. Dataseat has analytics software for current campaigns, including analysis and insights into incrementality testing, attribution accuracy and fraud, per the announcement.
Insight:
Dataseat's backing from big-name clientele comes as the startup aims to give advertisers in-house programmatic media buying with its DSP. The company was co-founded by industry veterans and serial entrepreneurs David Philippson, who is CEO, and Paul Hayton, the CTO. They launched the first mobile measurement and attribution company, Ad-X Tracking, before selling it to Criteo in 2013. Criteo later shut down the service and replaced it with a partner-based approach, AdExchanger reported.
Dataseat's attribution platform aims to help marketers tackle ad fraud, a costly problem worldwide. A recent report by fraud management platform Pixalate said more than one quarter (26%) of programmatic in-app ad impressions was fraudulent. The study also found that many apps in the Google Play store threaten brand safety, consumer privacy and national security. Apps registered in China and Hong Kong had the highest rate for invalid traffic (IVT) for in-app programmatic ads at 33%, followed by the 24% for apps that weren't registered in any country.
Yearly programmatic ad spending is forecast to grow 36% to $81 billion by 2021 from $59.5 billion last year, half of which went to digital video, researcher eMarketer estimated. To support that growth, programmatic media buying needs more time and investment to fulfill its promise of providing full automation, per a study by trade group the 4A's and consulting firm The 614 Group. Their survey found that 90% of media professionals think that advertising automation needs to go beyond replacing manual tasks by using algorithms, machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) to handle more complex media-buying decisions.
