Boostable, an advertising platform for marketplace sellers, announced on Thursday (October 23rd) it has raised $3.2M in additional seed financing to partner with new online marketplaces and expand its advertising channels beyond Facebook. While online marketplaces such as Etsy and Eventbrite are making it easy for anyone to sell things online, advertising remains a challenge for most sellers. Boostable is an advertising platform designed for them.
Founded by Selcuk Atli and Alex Chang, Boostable was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2014 class. Investors in Boostable’s seed financing round include Morado Ventures, Omidyar Network, SVAngel, Digital Garage, Vast Ventures, Fuel Capital and notable angel investors Auren Hoffman (LiveRamp), David Marcus (Facebook), Ric Calvillo (Nanigans), Hiten Shah (Kissmetrics) and Linda Rothenberg (Endeavor). Boostable has recently expanded its team to include veterans from ad-tech and e-commerce companies Facebook, Amazon, MediaMath, and Turn.
Boostable integrates with marketplaces to provide a plug and play advertising solution where sellers can launch ad campaigns in a matter of minutes and see results. Boostable’s co-founder and CEO, Selcuk Atli explained, “Boostable is leveling the playing field by providing sellers of all sizes access to advanced marketing tools such as Facebook retargeting, which is typically only employed by big brands and retailers.”
Jonathan Caplan, CEO of online marketplace OpenSky, noted, “Boostable’s unique solution is a win-win for us because it grows the sales of our sellers and our marketplace at the same time. Our sellers who use Boostable are seeing on average 2-4x return on advertising spend, reaching our shoppers even when they are not on our site.” John Kennedy, a seller on OpenSky, explains, “The learning curve for running Facebook ads is high, and Boostable makes it a no brainer to get started and reach new customers.”
Boostable is using the seed funding to expand its partnerships beyond retail e-commerce and into new types of marketplaces such as ticketed events and crowdfunding. The funding also enables Boostable to diversify beyond Facebook advertising to include new channels such as Google and Twitter.
With the recent funding, new partners and seasoned team, Boostable is accelerating in its mission to make advertising easy for marketplace sellers. Todor Tashev, partner at Omidyar Network, added, “We’ve seen the power of the online marketplace model to create new markets or reimagine old ones in e-commerce, financial services, transportation, hospitality and more. Boostable is addressing a real need for the participants on these platforms — demand generation.”
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