Advertising tech startup Adskom raises S$1 million, targets SEA

• Led by Japan’s Digital Garage; others include East Ventures, Skystar Capital
• Priority markets are Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia

JAKARTA-based programmatic advertising startup Adskom said it has raised S$1.06 million (US$850,000) in seed round funding from Tokyo-based Digital Garage, Singapore-headquartered East Ventures, and Jakarta-based Beenos Plaza and Skystar Capital.
 
Launched in April 2013, Adskom developed and built a programmatic platform customised for the Asean market. It is planning a Series A funding round in early 2015, the company said in a statement.
 
The recent investment will be used to fund the development of its new data management platform and also for expansion into South-East Asia, with Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia as the priority markets.
 
According to a report by Magna Global, Asia will have the fastest programmatic growth (73%) in 2014, with a total spend of over US$500 million. Singapore and Malaysia will be the highest growth countries.
 
eMarketer predicts advertisers in Asia Pacific will spend US$152 billion on all paid media channels this year, with digital advertising seeing an increase of US$40 billion, Adskom said.
 
“Digital advertising in Asia today is at an inflection point, with marketers and advertisers turning to programmatic advertising to shape their strategies, as well as evaluate campaigns,” said its chief executive officer Italo Gani.
 
“With this new funding we will expand our programmatic advertising solutions in Indonesia and other markets in South-East Asia, and build our next-generation platforms focused on data management,” he added.
 
Adskom provides programmatic advertising platforms to help ad-buyers reach their audience more efficiently, and to help publishers increase revenues, the company claimed.
 
With close to 40 people, Adskom is led by Daniel Armanto, a long-time player in IT product development, and Gani, a digital business entrepreneur. The company said it currently has operations in Indonesia, Singapore and the United States.

 
“South-East Asia’s smartphone penetration is on an upswing, making it a favourable region in which to invest,” said Fumihiko Ishimaru, chief operating officer of DG Incubation, the investment arm of Japan’s Digital Garage.
 
“Partnering with Adskom serves to capture this growing momentum. We believe the team has the expertise, product set and traction to be the category leader for programmatic advertising in South-East Asia,” he added.
 
In the second quarter of 2013, Adskom received initial seed funding from Rebright Partners, a venture capital firm in Japan. The funding was key to the development of Adskom‘s Supply-Side Platform (SSP).
 
Its SSP currently manages approximately 500 million impressions per month and is projected to handle more than one billion impressions per month by the first quarter of 2015, the company claimed.
 
Adskom works with Indonesia’s premium publishers including Kompas.com, Kapanlagi.com, Detik.com, Okezone.com and Liputan6.com.
 
It said it also works with close to 70 demand side partners that are very active in South-East Asia, including Tubemogul, Criteo, Vserv.mobi, DoubleClick Bid Managers and others.
 
Brands that have run campaigns using Adskom’s platforms in Indonesia include P&G, Unilever, Bank Central Asia (BCA) pharmaceutical group Combiphar and others.
 
Global agencies like the WPP group, Aegis Dentsu Networks, Omnicom, Starcom, DM Pratama and others also partner with Adskom.
 
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