Unicast Receives $8 Million in Second-Round Financing

Unicast Communications, provider of its trademarked Superstitial rich media advertising solution, said it has received an additional $8 million in investments.

Investors include Grace Capital, Intel Corp., The MacManus Group and a number of private investors, including James A. Lash and Kenneth Fadner, co-founder and former president of AdWeek magazine. The funds add to the $7 million in initial funding announced in September 1998.

Unicast’s Superstitial rich media advertising solution “allows advertisers to use larger, more creative online advertising while assuring Web publishers no degradation in their users’ experience,” according to the company.

“Judging from the initial results of our Superstitial launch, Unicast clearly has produced more than a new advertising tool, we’ve pioneered a new category within the rich media space that speaks to the needs of advertisers, Web publishers and end-users,” said Richard Hopple, CEO of Unicast.

Superstitial are an accountable, forced-exposure rich media advertising solution that can hold any screen position and size, currently allow for file sizes up to 70K, and can be authored in creative formats including Java, Macromedia Flash and Director, HTML, GIF 89, and audio.

Unicast was founded in January 1996 as a joint venture between the MacManus Group, parent company of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, and BBN, now GTE Internetworking.