Sky cements partnership with US native advertising firm Sharethrough
British Sky Broadcastting has bought a stake in fast-growing US technology company Sharethrough, which specialises in native advertising, a hot area for online publishers.
Sky has bought a $5m equity stake as San Francisco-based Sharethrough, which describes its technology as monetization software for modern publishers, expands into Europe following its recent acquisition of London-based competitor VAN.
Sharethrough, which is already running at a profit, powers what it calls the world's largest in-feed advertising exchange, offering advertisers "native advertising" services.
Native advertising is a form of advertorial content, where online ad campaigns are designed to match the same editorial style of the webpages they are hosted on.
Sky invested alongside existing investors Floodgate, Elevation Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners and Silver Creek Ventures, bringing the total of the funding round to $10m, just months after another $17m round.
Sharethrough said it has been working with BSkyB’s digital team and “essentially betting that the future of monetization strongly includes native,” according to TechCrunch's interview with the company's founder, Dan Greenberg, which meant the investment was a means of “[cementing] our partnership”.
As part of the deal, Jamie West, Deputy Managing Director of Sky Media (the company’s ad sales division), will become a board observer at Sharethrough.