Red Ventures invests $15m in Ampush for native advertising
Red Ventures has announced a $15m investment in Ampush, which provides native in-feed mobile advertising solutions to marketers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. The platform allows marketers to manage campaigns across the different platforms from one dashboard. Red Ventures is an enterprise platform that helps optimise and manage end-to-end customer acquisitions. Native advertising has become more popular in mobile advertising as it cannot be blocked by ad-blockers, however, others feel that the increasing scale in native advertising may mean that it becomes easier to block, due to recognisable codes on sites.  

by Ben Frederick @mp_benfred, October 20, 2015

Red Ventures, a marketing and sales company, announced a $15 million investment in Ampush, a native in-feed mobile advertising company. The money will be used to help develop its software and expand internationally.

Ampush provides native in-feed mobile advertising solutions to marketers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, specializing in customer acquisition and direct response marketing. Their platform allows marketers to manage their campaigns across these platforms from one dashboard.

Red Ventures is an enterprise platform that helps optimize and manage end-to-end customer acquisition.

Ampush has, until now, been a bootstrapped business, though it appears the strategic partnership with Red Ventures was a big part of their decision to have a round of funding.

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Red Ventures CEO Ric Elias will join the Ampush board of directors as a part of the deal, and the two companies will leverage each other’s technology as well.

Ampush has grown substantially this year, with 1H net revenue up nearly 100% YoY in 2015.

The funding follows the trend of content being consumed on sites other than where it was created: Facebook’s plan to host content with features like Instant Articles is a simultaneous effort to improve mobile experiences and keep readers on their site. Their “walled garden” approach to advertisers, combine with the hoard of data they control.

Some worry that ad networks increasing scale may mean native advertising will become easier to block, due either to vigilant ad-blocking software or to recognizable code on sites. Others feel that native advertising is the future of mobile advertising, and that ad blockers have only expedited that future.