Series B Funding Will Solidify ImageSpan's Leadership in Digital Content
Licensing and Settlement Services
SAUSALITO, Calif., June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- ImageSpan Inc., which
provides enabling infrastructure for digital content licensing, today
announced that it has closed a second round financing of $11 million from a
group led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI), a wholly owned
subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG, a leading international media company.
Existing investors Greycroft Partners, headed by Alan Patricof, and
Village Ventures also participated. Additional funds came from the New York
City Investment Fund, City Light Capital and Ackerley Partners LLC.
The Series B financing comes as ImageSpan is launching new partnerships
and rolling out its platform with major customers to extend its market
leadership. ImageSpan currently provides extensive content licensing
infrastructure for Omnicom's Zimmerman Partners, Sports Illustrated,
TAKKLE, Dealer.com and Visible World.
Built for the Web 2.0 world of mashups and projects with multiple
copyright holders, ImageSpan has built the premier platform for licensing
digital photographs, illustrations and video content.
"We have experienced tremendous growth recently and we now have the
additional financial resources we need to meet rapidly growing customer
demand," said Iain Scholnick, chief executive officer, ImageSpan. "Our
automated digital content licensing platform and services address a major
barrier to profitability for all sides: today's manual transaction
processes for digital content licensing."
As advertising service providers address client demands to produce a
greater volume of more highly targeted campaigns in today's transmedia
world, they deal with many internal and external sources of digital image,
video and audio content for creating those campaigns. ImageSpan streamlines
the licensing process for all this digital source material and then defines
rights to the newly-created content, tracks usage, and ensures accurate
royalty reporting and payments.
By dramatically reducing the time and cost of licensing and royalty
settlements, ImageSpan speeds the pace of transactions, enables faster
campaign creation and expands revenue opportunities.
"We see ImageSpan solving a very serious pain point affecting the
entire media landscape today -- that of licensing and monetizing digital
image and video content at a time when both of these content categories are
growing increasingly important on the web," said Richard Sarnoff, President
of BDMI.
"Since our investment in ImageSpan last year, we've been impressed by
their ability to deliver exactly what media companies, advertising
agencies, marketing firms and those providing commercial- and
user-generated local content have been demanding -- a game-changing
licensing automation platform for the management and monetization of
digital media," said Alan Patricof, founder and managing director,
Greycroft Partners LLC.
About ImageSpan
ImageSpan provides an enabling infrastructure for content licensing,
helping content owners define rights and transact online in minutes. We
automate today's manual licensing processes. ImageSpan is the
market-leading licensing automation platform partner for global
advertising, content production and content delivery businesses. Enterprise
partners using the ImageSpan platform include Omnicom, Visible World and
online advertising agencies. ImageSpan offers a number of delivery options
including deployment through Adobe software. Founded in 2003 and based in
Sausalito, California, ImageSpan is a trusted solution provider and is the
exclusive provider of license registry services to the PLUS Coalition, the
international, multi- industry standards body for image licensing.
About Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI)
Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) is a strategic venture
investor focused on innovative digital media technologies, products and
distribution channels across the globe. BDMI is a wholly owned subsidiary
of Bertelsmann AG, a leading international media company with over $25
billion in revenues and over 102,000 employees across more than 50
countries. For more information, visit: http://www.bdmifund.com
Bertelsmann AG is comprised of the television channels, television
production companies, and radio stations of Europe's largest entertainment
group, RTL Group (RTL Television, M6, Five, Fremantle Media), and the more
than 120 publishing houses of Random House, the world's largest trade book
publisher (Alfred A. Knopf, Bantam, Goldmann). Gruner + Jahr is Europe's
number one magazine publisher (Stern, Geo, Neon, Capital). The Sony BMG
joint venture in the BMG division is synonymous with creativity and strong
international music brands (Beyonce, Dixie Chicks, Justin Timberlake,
Christina Aguilera). The Arvato media and communications services division
brings together distribution, service centers and customer-relationship
management, state-of-the art printing manufacturing, storage media
production, mobile services, and comprehensive IT services. Bertelsmann's
direct-to- customer businesses are unified within the Direct Group: book,
DVD, and music clubs (Der Club, France Loisirs), as well as book retailers
in France and Portugal. For more information, visit:
http://www.bertelsmann.com
About Greycroft Partners
Greycroft Partners, based in New York City, is a venture capital
partnership formed to invest in promising digital media companies. The
firm's $75mm fund includes participation from leading corporate executives
around the world. Greycroft also leverages an extensive network of media
and technology connections to help investees gain visibility, build
strategic relationships, and successfully bring their products to market.
Greycroft's portfolio companies benefit from active, hands-on assistance in
all phases of expansion. http://www.greycroftpartners.com
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SOURCE ImageSpan Inc.
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