Poindexter Banks $8M, Plans One-Stop Shop

Behavioral marketing and ad serving player Poindexter Systems has bagged $8 million in new venture funding, and says it plans to build out its technology offerings — a la DoubleClick or Atlas DMT.

“We think there’s a really good opportunity to take a run at Atlas and DoubleClick,” said Rich Person, president and CEO of Poindexter.

Person said Poindexter would use the money to round out its technology solutions to include site analytics, email, and search engine marketing capabilities.

“Clients are looking for one-stop shopping,” said Person. “We haven’t provided that, but we will. We think we’ll provide better products with better performance. The [competitors’] weakness, I think, lies in first-generation ad serving.”

Currently, the 33-employee company offers its Poindexter Optimization Engine which looks at variables like IP address, geography, ZIP code and psychographic data. It lets clients optimize based on media, creative, or brand.

“We think we have a pretty good head start in terms of behavioral targeting. We will continue to push that ahead. We will continue to develop our reporting interface,” said Person.

Poindexter also has an ad serving system called SmartServe. It recently re-architected SmartServe to begin delivering ads more quickly, using content delivery networks like Akamai, Mirror Image Internet and Speedera.

The company also plans to use the dough to staff up its U.S. sales force and pursue sales initiatives in areas the company thinks are growing rapidly.

“We’ve been hiring very aggressively for probably the last seven to months and will continue to do that,” Person said.

The company hired Interpublic veteran Debra Mason as chief financial officer in May. She most recently served as executive VP and CFO of Interpublic’s NFO WorldGroup research subsidiary. Person said the company has also recently developed an internal product development group, which will handle “build or buy” decisions as the company works to develop new technology offerings.

The $8 million financing round was led by new investors Blue Chip Venture Company and WallerSutton 2000. Existing investors Hudson Ventures and Echelon Ventures also participated. As part of the financing, WallerSutton partner Bill Ingram and Blue Chip Venture Company director Mark Wright will join the Poindexter board of directors.

Poindexter’s client list includes firms like American Express, America Online, Continental Airlines, T-Mobile, Delta Song and Eddie Bauer.