Leading video advertising enablement platform, Intelligent Video Solutions (iVS) today (22 September) announced its latest round of fundraising. The Pre-Series B round, led by Tin Men Capital as well as notable investors such as Vulpes, Kickstart Ventures and SG Innovate, will extend the platform’s lead in Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. It will also allow the company to expand to new territories in Asia-Pacific, namely Japan and Australia.

iVS provides publishers with the ability to deliver and optimise their video advertising inventory without ceding control and customer ownership to third-party video platforms. Working on a pure success-based business model, the company eradicates cost and traffic cannibalisation barriers for publishers and broadcasters. iVS currently serves more than 100 million unique visitors with access to over 1 billion premium video ad impressions per month. Recently, the company also announced the launch of its in-stream video advertising marketplace in Southeast Asia which gives advertisers a single point-of-access to in-stream video inventory across top tier publishers in the region. Its clients include publishers such as Kompas Gramedia, Kapanlagi, ABS-CBN, The Manila Times, Mothership, and more as well as media agencies such as Publicis, Dentsu, IPG, and brands such as Disney Plus, Netflix and Spotify.

"The IVS in-stream marketplace has seen a very encouraging trajectory of growth across brands & agencies in 2020/21. We have been under the hood rolling out a slew of ad products including first-party interest-based data targeting, contextual targeting, et al while also continuing our aggressive expansion to new markets in SEA & beyond. I am certain that the infusion of new funds and strong business understanding from Tin Men Capital will see us hit escape velocity both on the Video player platform business as well as the in-stream marketplace business.” said Hari Shankar, chief revenue officer of IVS.

The over-subscribed Pre-Series B fundraise is on the back of tremendous growth over the past year by iVS. Its net revenue grew by 537% since its last funding round in February 2019. This is despite global slumps due to the pandemic. "We were convinced by the iVS team’s tremendous progress over the past year and see clear paths to fill in the gaps in the AVOD (Advertising-Based Video on Demand) market across Asia Pacific. This translates to the ability to monetise higher cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for the benefit of iVS’s publisher partners while keeping costs of delivery at around the same levels,” said co-founder of Tin Men Capital, Murli Ravi.

“We believe there are still large untapped opportunities in the AVOD market in Asia Pacific. Our focus remains on building out a business model with fully aligned incentives between media companies and vendors. This remains an ongoing challenge in markets where CPMs are low, while costs of delivery are broadly the same as in mature markets like the US or Europe. Tin Men Capital was a great fit for our funding round, given their team’s exposure to media and ad tech. The investment will help us extend our lead in Southeast Asia, as we enter new territories including Australia and Japan and prepare to go global. To aid this expansion strategy, we are on an active talent hunt. We will announce various senior executive hires in the coming weeks,” added Milan Reinartz, chief executive officer of iVS.