Jonas Brandon over at StartUpNorth reported today that Toronto-based Ontogenix has landed a substantial investment from GrowthWorks and strategic investor Pareto Corporation. This round of financing will allow Ontogenix to go to market with their product, an Interest Correlation Engine.
Ontogenix's technology is designed to increase the relevance of ads presented on social media sites like Facebook and MySpace by targeting users based on their interests. Ontogenix leverages aggregate information on the general public’s interests, attitudes, and opinions from hundreds of publicly available sources. This information is then combined with Ontogenix's proprietary data model to form the basis for a predictive engine that can tell advertisers which ads will have high relevance to different user types. StartUpNorth's Brandon likes Ontogenix's chances in this burgeoning market:
In pilot tests, Ontogenix was able to increase click through rates by 400%. With Google publicly expressing remorse for the $900M guaranteed ad deal with MySpace and Facebook being lambasted for their Beacon program, it is high time someone figured out a better way to serve ads on social networks; we’re hoping it’s a Canadian startup.
A quick Google search on Ontogenix uncovered that the aforementioned Geosign made a strategic investment in Ontogenix in early 2007.
Rob Lewis
Rob is the President of Techvibes Media Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of Techvibes.com.
His diverse background includes stints in International Trade Finance, Web Development, and Enterprise Software and he is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University.
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