FreeWheel Secures $16.8 Million inStrategic Institutional Financing

SAN MATEO, Calif., April26 /PRNewswire/ — Video monetization technology company FreeWheel todayannounced it has closed $16.8 million instrategic institutional funding. New investor Steamboat Ventures, aventure capital firm affiliated with The Walt Disney Company, joinedexisting investors Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., Battery Ventures,and Foundation Capital to complete the $16.8million round.

FreeWheel'stechnology enables global media companies and content distributors toeffectively manage ad sales rights, produce accurate inventory forecastsfor live or on demand content, deliver a yield-optimized set of ads,and analyze video business performance. With the latest version of itsflagship product, Monetization Rights Management® (MRM),the company offers capabilities developed to address TVEverywhere initiatives, including advanced commercial break patternmanagement.

"We've been hugebelievers in FreeWheel from the very start, since the team identified abig hole in the market and started building the business from ouroffices in Menlo Park," said Roger Lee, general partner at Battery Ventures."We look at thousands of companies each year and invest in only ahandful. We truly believe in the potential for this industry, and it'sclear that FreeWheel is far and away the leader in this space."

The new funds willenable FreeWheel tofurther scale its infrastructure to support new and existing clients,expand that infrastructure globally, and continue to innovate with newproducts to solve the converging video industry's biggest pain points.

"Multiple screens andtheir ability to distribute information are everywhere, and digitalvideo growth remains a key element of Turner's overall digitalstrategy," said David Levy, president ofsales, distribution and sports, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc."FreeWheel's ability to effectively serve video ads for our leadingonline digital brands will further enhance Turner's ability to maximizerevenue potential. We're confident that our alliance will not onlyprotect our content investment but also enable new businessopportunities."

FreeWheel's progressover the last two years optimizing the global management andmonetization of online premium video has been tremendous," said Dan Beldy, managing director of SteamboatVentures. "They have built a differentiated service uniquely suited topremium publishers. Digital video ad serving and ad rights management isa growing market with enormous potential, especially as televisioncontent becomes increasingly portable. FreeWheel has the right platformto meet the advertising needs of its major media clients, and we areexcited to be working with them."

FreeWheel has addednumerous high-profile media clients in the past year, including Turner,VEVO, MLB.com, and Discovery Communications. Since it was founded in2007, FreeWheel has rapidly scaled to serve over two billion adimpressions per month and recently launched the PAVE Initiative, apartner program representing systems integrations with over 70 companiesin the digital video space. FreeWheel has grown to over 90 full timeemployees with offices in San Mateo, New York, and Beijing.

"We are honored to addSteamboat Ventures to our esteemed investor set," said Doug Knopper, co-founder and co-CEO ofFreeWheel. "We've grown faster than anyone predicted and added amazingclients along the way — some of the largest media companies in theworld. We believe we can ultimately monetize content that runs on everyplatform and every screen. It's an incredibly exciting time for us andwe're proud of this showing of support."

Concurrent with thisinvestment, Mr. Beldy will join Trish Jonesof Turner Broadcasting to sit on FreeWheel's Board of Directors as anobserver.

About FreeWheel

FreeWheel offers themost formidable system for digital video ad management and monetization.Built from the ground up by a handful of former DoubleClick executives,FreeWheel's solution-set has already armed companies like TurnerBroadcasting System, Warner Brothers, CBS, VEVO, DiscoveryCommunications, and others with the tools and services necessary to makemore money from their video content. For more information, pleasevisit: www.freewheel.tv.Follow the company on Twitter @FreeWheeldotTV.

SOURCE FreeWheel

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