RadiumOne said it has raised $21 million for a new digital ad network that leverages the social web.
That a lot of capital for an ad-based startup, but the San Francisco company believes it can deliver superior advertising performance through its patent-pending ShareGraph technology. The ShareGraph technology analyzes how users communicate with their closest connections and then identifies the specific consumers who are most likely to engage with a brand’s ads. RadiumOne says this works better than traditional behavioral targeting techniques. It also enables consumers to share ads with their friends, creating a multiplier effect for advertisers.
The company is the brainchild of Gurbaksh Chahal, founder and chief executive. He became famous as a whiz kid entrepreneur, founding two ad companies worth $340 million by the age of 25. He founded the ad network ClickAgents at age 16 and sold it in 2000 for $40 million. Then he started behavioral targeting firm BlueLithium in 2004 and sold it to Yahoo in 2007 for $300 million.
