NEW YORK, NY—(Marketwired - Sep 19, 2016) - White Ops, the leading provider of sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) detection and prevention services for the digital advertising market, today announced that it has closed a $20 million Series B funding round. Original investors Paladin Capital Group and Grotech Ventures led the new funding round with participation from additional cyber security industry investors. The new funding will fuel acceleration of White Ops leadership in research and development, and enable strategic expansion of White Ops’ U.S. and international sales and marketing footprint.
Since emerging from stealth mode in 2013, White Ops raised approximately $33 million. Revenue has increased over 300% year-over-year during 2015, with headcount up over 50% during the last 12 months and customer logos increasing by a factor of 3.6-fold across brand advertisers, agencies, adtech, and publishers.
White Ops Fraud Sensor™ customers include many of the top national advertisers and publishers, and White Ops MediaGuard™ is employed by major ad tech platforms who are demonstrating their commitment to ensure media transparency and reduce the negative economic impact of fraud in the digital media supply chain. Beginning this year, AOL is using MediaGuard™ to block fraud and to improve the quality of the media they bring to their customers.
“At AOL, we seek to deliver accountability for every dollar spent by our clients,” said Tim Mahlman, President, AOL Platforms. “We are working diligently with partners such as White Ops to shape a more transparent and programmatic industry and reduce non-human traffic across all digital media.”
“Paladin Capital Group is excited to increase its investment in White Ops due to the enormous market opportunity represented by the digital advertising space, and the innovative work White Ops has done to expose the financial losses caused by cyber criminals,” said Philip Eliot, Managing Director at Paladin Capital Group. “White Ops offers a unique way to use cyber security to actually help advertisers, agencies, adtech and publishers grow their business and generate value.”
Since its founding, White Ops has been a major catalyst in accurately scoping levels of global digital ad fraud and is instrumental in facilitating discussions of transparency and accountability. White Ops is the first, and currently only, company accredited under the Media Rating Council’s (MRC) rigorous new SIVT detection requirements. In White Ops’ 2nd annual Bot Baseline Fraud in Digital Advertising (2015), conducted with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the company estimated that $7.2 billion will be lost this year alone to ad fraud. Companies that participated in the study lost $10 million to digital ad fraud in 2015 on average. Compromise was found across the ad ecosystem, and criminals continue to be adept at mimicking a multitude of attributes to game metrics and traditional controls.
“As a group of white hat hackers, the goal of the White Ops team is to find a way to not just defend advertisers and their partners, but take the fight to the criminals and make a real impact,” said Michael Tiffany, CEO and co-founder at White Ops. “As a cyber security company in the digital ad industry, White Ops is uniquely positioned to empower our customers and partners to achieve extraordinary results against cybercrime-and actually take business back from the bad guys. We are pleased in the confidence our current investors have shown by increasing their investment in White Ops during this B-round, and we welcome our new investors.”
