Picnic - the user-first media platform which exists to create a more user-friendly ad-funded web - announced it has closed a £1m funding round.

Picnic will leverage the funds to accelerate the development of solutions aimed at delivering outcomes for brands, whilst rewarding user-first and sustainable behaviours. The company also plans to use the funds to continue the growth of the New York office and expansion into the US market. 

The round was led by FirstPartyCapital (FPC), an early-stage venture capital firm specialising in ad tech, martech, and digital media. FPC is joined by Gurman Hundal, global executive chairman and co-founder at MiQ, Brian O’Kelley, co-founder and CEO of Scope3, and US-based AperiamVentures in the strategic investment. 

Over the past four years, London-based Picnic has established itself as one of the UK’s leading homegrown ad tech companies, delivering over 600 campaigns across various verticals, and helping brands such as EE, L’Oreal, and Amazon to reach highly receptive audiences across the open web. Picnic’s user-first approach has led to award-winning campaigns with significant brand uplift for advertisers.

Sustainability is also integrated within the core of Picnic’s product – filtering their marketplace for low-carbon emitting domains. Picnic also carbon compensates 100% of delivery as standard. Backing from industry experts, including Scope3’s Brian O’Kelley, will help Picnic to accelerate growth whilst staying true to their values.

Matthew Goldhill, founder and CEO of Picnic, commented: “We spent our first few years bootstrapping and I’m incredibly proud of that achievement. The goal with this latest round of investment is to accelerate growth, establishing ourselves in the US market to bring our user-first platform to a wider, global audience. Having FPC, AperiamVentures, Gurman Hundal, and Brian O’Kelley as part of that journey will allow us to deliver a better ad experience for both consumers and brands. And being able to do so with our continued focus on sustainability means we will strive to be a positive force on the industry.”

Gurman Hundal, global executive chairman and co-founder of MiQ, commented: “As someone who knows how tough it can be bootstrapping a tech startup, Picnic’s traction over the last few years is impressive. I’m excited to share my learnings in this space as they look to accelerate their growth and deliver the highest quality ad experiences to users and brands alike.”

Brian O’Kelley, CEO and co-founder of Scope3, commented: “I believe that a better internet needs better advertising, and I'm excited to support Picnic's innovation around improving the user experience of mobile advertising. Sustainability is fundamentally about making each ad experience count, and that's built into the way Picnic does business. I look forward to supporting Picnic's mission of prioritising the user and delivering better, more sustainable outcomes for advertisers and publishers.” 

Rich Ashton, managing partner at FirstPartyCapital, commented: “The investment from FPC and other industry specialists speaks to the impressive vision and product that the Picnic team has created. We’re proud to be assisting with their expansion into the US and helping to accelerate the adoption of their curated marketplace of premium publishers and technology/data partners.”

Eric Franchi, general partner at Aperiam Ventures commented: “In Picnic, we were thrilled to find a product and business that delivers great user experience and best-in class marketing outcomes; and doing so in an industry-leading sustainable way. As a firm with deep and long-standing connections to the ad ecosystem, AperiamVentures is excited to work with the Picnic team to support their rapid US expansion.” 

Since its founding in 2021, FirstPartyCapital has raised USD$11m (£8.8m) and invested in 15 companies. Approximately £4.5m (USD$5.75m) in funding has been provided to ten UK startups such as Lumen, Good-Loop, and Evorra. The firm's aim is to complete 20 investments and have USD$15m AUM by the end of 2023, before seeking to raise a USD$50m (£40.2m) second fund next year.

Picnic

Picnic Media is a leading premium mobile ad formats company, delivering high-impact, social-style ad formats on a unique marketplace of the highest quality mobile inventory. Their intuitively engaging advertising campaigns allow advertisers to increa...

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