GLOBAL – JULY 2011 – Online advertising software developer Burt has received a SEK 14 million ($2 million) investment from Swedish investment company, Industrifonden. Burt founders, Gustav von Sydow and Gustav Martner, along with the investment firm Tornstaden will also contribute to a total share profile of SEK 20 million ($3 million). The funds will be used to directly prepare the company for international expansion and further develop Burt’s analysis platform, Rich.
Burt has created products that have gained attention at conferences such as Techcrunch50, DEMO, Cannes Lions and Web 2.0, as well as produced award-winning campaigns for Google, Volkswagen, and Red Bull, among others, at Crispin, Porter + Bogusky Europe.
The company was established in Sweden in 2009 by ad men and entrepreneurs Gustav von Sydow and Gustav Martner. In the past year has grown from a team of two to a team of 24 employees. The international expansion will see Burt opening offices in the UK and the USA as well as retaining its Swedish operations.
Burt is currently developing Rich, a tool to help leading brands, creative agencies and media agencies to measure, analyze and improve online advertising. With Rich, users can easily analyse the environments where ads are displayed, see how many other ads are on each page and which ads have been seen by users. The information generated by Rich is extremely valuable to both ad buyers – who can compare online with broadcast and print advertising – and media agencies, who gain greater control over their most important digital revenue source, a market worth over 50 billion US dollars.
Released in 2010, Rich has already analyzed over ten billion ads and has been used by SAS, Bonnier and Stampen, among others. In addition, pilot projects are under way in a number of other markets in collaboration with world-leading creative agencies.
Johan Englund, Investment Manager at Industrifonden, says: “There are no powerful tools available today that are totally focused on analysing online ads. Without such insight, the industry is wasting ad spending, lower advertising revenue and giving a poorer user experience. Burt is the first company to give us these tools and offer real user insight into how online can really influence consumer habits.”
