ADVERTISING AND ENTREPRENEURIAL HEAVYWEIGHTS INVEST IN ROCKABOX AS IT REBRANDS TO SCOOTA

Bartle BogleHegarty co-founder Sir John Hegarty; BMP co-founder and former Omnicom chairman Martin Boase; ex-TBWA president Michael Greenlees; and Innocent Drinks co-founders Richard Reed, Jon Wright and Adam Balon, among new investors.

Rockabox, the online advertising technology company co-founded by Tangozebra founder James Booth and TV format creator TorieChilcott has rebranded as Scoota and taken a new round of investment from some of the advertising industry’s biggest names.

Scoota is an online advertising technology company that enables advertisers to create, activate, measure and optimise rich media brand campaigns, at scale, programmatically – all within a single platform.

It has raised £3.7 million in the new round, which will be used to invest in continuing the development of its technology platform and growth into the wider European market.

Sir John Hegarty said of the investment: “Creativity is at the heart of all great advertising. Online advertising is a medium all advertisers should embrace, but how to deliver the best creative idea in the most effective way remains a big challenge. The team at Scoota is transforming the programmatic landscape and bringing to it exciting new opportunities for creativity; I’m delighted to be a part of this journey.”

Richard Reed, “Scoota has developed a unique platform that allows brands to reach current and future customers in a way that is relevant, highly creative and, thanks to some very clever technology, at an unprecedented scale. We’re very excited about Scoota’s future.”

According to recent figures from eMarketer, UK programmatic digital display ad spend will grow 66.2% to reach £1.8 billion this year, accounting for more than half (59%) of the UK display advertising market for the first time. Procter & Gamble said this time last year that it aimed to buy 70-75% of its digital ads programmatically by the end of 2014.

Scoota CEO James Booth said: “The efficiency programmatic delivers is something all advertisers are looking for, but when it comes to driving powerful branding programmatically, at enough scale to deliver results effectively, the barriers are significant. At Scoota we’ve spent a number of years solving the technical challenges, allowing us to help the biggest advertisers find ways to engage, inspire and persuade customers more effectively than ever before.”

Chilcott added, “Brands are desperate for partners that understand and respect them well enough to use technology to empower and enable their creativity. This investment from the creative industry represents the two sides, creative and tech, coming together to build a better understanding of how we can help brands do great work. That is what Scoota is all about.”

Hegarty, Senior, Boase, Greenlees and the Innocent founders are all bringing new investment to the business. Greenlees has been non-executive chairman at the company since the beginning of 2014. They join previous VC investors Frog Capital, Notion and fourteen17 who are increasing their investment in the new round. Also investing is the crowd funding group, Venture Founders.