Index Ventures invests US$80M in Adconion Media group

Adconion Media group receives investment of $80m  - Adconion obtains record venture round in Europe

26 February 2008: Adconion Media Group, Munich, one of the world’s fastest growing online advertising networks, has announced a £40.9 million (US$80 million) Series C round of venture funding. The financing is the largest online media venture investment in European history.

The investment was led by Index Ventures, who were joined by existing investor Wellington Partners, and represents the first investment made from Index’s recently announced growth fund. The capital will be used to continue expansion into Europe, US and Asia, strengthening the company’s position as an independent player. In addition, capital will be invested in Adconion’s behavioral targeting technology and also to fund selected acquisitions. Index partners’ Dominique Vidal, former CEO of Yahoo! Europe, and Giuseppe Zocco, the firm’s co-founder, will join Adconion’s board of directors.

“Adconion has the relationships, the expertise and the best in class technology becoming of a future market-leader in technology’s hottest growth sector,” says Dom Vidal of Index Ventures. “Our experience as investors in the advertising space enables us to support Adconion in continuing its rapid expansion throughout Europe and North America and to further build its global presence. As online media becomes more fragmented and as agencies look for more independent partners for solutions, we believe ad networks like Adconion are perfectly positioned to capture more advertising spend.”

“At the risk of sounding clichéd, the modern business landscape is irrefutably global in scale and that is due primarily to the opportunities created by the Internet,” says Adconion founder and CEO Tyler Moebius. “Agencies choose to partner with Adconion because their clients are likely in a position where doing business internationally is either ‘business as usual’ or a strategic opportunity for growth. This substantial investment from Index and Wellington will position Adconion alongside the portals on marketer’s short-lists for global distribution partners.”

“Tyler and his team have done an outstanding job building a truly global online advertising network,” says Frank Boehnke of Wellington Partners. "We are very excited to continue to work with Tyler and Adconion on one of the most exciting growth stories in the global marketplace.”

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Contact details :

Jo Sensini PR
Omar Jamil, Claire Foss or Jo Sensini
Tel : 020 8996 1803 or 020 8996 1800
Email : omar@josensinipr.com  /claire@josensinipr.com  / jo@josensinipr.com 

Adconion
Fabienne Christen
Tel: 020 3170 6172
Email: fchristen@adconion.com

Note to editors:

About Adconion

Adconion Media Group is an international, independent Advertising Network. Since its founding in 2005 the company has focused on the realization of performance-driven branding campaigns that deliver massive global reach. Adconion's clients consist of advertising agencies and direct advertisers as well as its partner base of premium websites from a wide range of sectors. Adconion combines its in-house technology and high touch client service with quality media to exceed its partners campaign objectives. Adconion has offices around the world in London, Munich, Hamburg, Paris, Melbourne, Sydney, New York, Toronto and Santa Monica. Adconion is member of the International Advertising Bureau (IAB) and a founding member of IASH Europe. Visit Adconion at www.adconion.com .

About Index Ventures

Index Ventures is a leading European venture capital firm active in technology venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping top entrepreneurial teams in the Information Technology and Life Science sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders. The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and focuses on investments from seed through growth stage companies. Recent exits include Skype (the pioneering communications company acquired by eBay); MySQL (the world's most popular open source database recently acquired by Sun), Last.fm (the world’s largest social music platform, recently acquired by CBS) and BioXell (BIOX, floated on the SWX in 2007). For more information, please visit www.indexventures.com .

About Wellington Partners

Wellington Partners ranks among the most successful pan-European venture capital firms. With € 800 million under management and offices in London, Munich and Zurich, the firm invests into opportunities throughout Europe that have the potential to become global leaders, mainly in the areas of Information Technology, Media Convergence and Life Science. Wellington Partners has invested in more than 100 companies in Europe and Israel, including now publicly traded Actelion, SAF and XING, successful privately held companies like Alando (acquired by eBay) and ImmobilienScout24 (acquired by Deutsche Telekom) as well as current portfolio companies like Adconion Astaro, Questico and Truphone. For more information, please visit www.wellington-partners.com .

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Index Ventures has announced its first investment from its recently launched €400 million Index Ventures Growth I L.P fund. This US$80M investment underlines Index's goal to make large investments in later stage opportunities with global ambitions, in both private and listed companies. Index Ventures' primary focus is technology and life science companies. Dr Guido Magni, formerly the Global Head of Medical Science, at F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd, joined the team in February to manage investments from this new fund. If you would like to interview Dr Magni about the scope and the ambition of the new fund, please reply to this email or contact Justine Lamond at College Hill: index@collegehill.com or +44 (0)20 7866 7857.