VigLink raises $18M Series C Funding led by RRE Ventures

San Francisco-based VigLink has just announced $18 million in funding led by RRE Ventures, with participation from existing investors Google Ventures, Emergence Capital, First Round Capital and additional funding from Correlation Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. This brings the total funds raised by VigLink to $26 million. The $18 million in Series C financing will be used to fuel VigLink's international expansion, particularly into Europe and APAC, and better address the needs of advertisers.

VigLink was founded in 2009 and is a platform for content-driven commerce with more than 10 billion pageviews and over five hundred million clicks a month. With a large publisher network, VigLink monetizes content for over 300,000 sites including household media brands such as Elle, Road & Track, and CNET to independent bloggers, forum owners, and mobile apps. VigLink works with more than 35,000 advertisers to drive sales, including eBay, Amazon, Nike, Nordstrom, and Best Buy.

Native advertising is enabled in the form of ordinary links embedded directly into the publisher's content. Advertisers gain new customers and publishers are paid for sales from their content. The platform on which these site-to-site clicks are priced, bought and sold is the VigLink Exchange (VLX). VigLink's technology routes clicks to the highest yielding advertiser and maximizes revenue for the publisher.

VLX prices and transacts inventory from several sources including VigLink Convert, VigLink Insert, and VigLink Spotlight. Clicks delivered through VLX price higher than traditional affiliate links.

The company’s revenue doubled year-over-year from 2012 to 2013. Funds are intended to finance expansion in building out publisher network in the form of sales, marketing, and business development staff. Advertisers will be provided more control and visibility into their targeting and performance on VLX.

"The link is the original native ad. A defining feature of the Internet, links engage readers and drive tremendous value to their target. That value has never been market priced until now." -Oliver Roup, Founder and CEO of VigLink.

"Traffic is the currency of the web," said Eric Wiesen, General Partner with RRE Ventures. "I see a massive opportunity to help publishers harvest and monetize the intent generated within their content and VigLink is the leading company in the world at routing that intent to advertisers and merchants."