Russian venture fund Impulse VC has announced an investment of $800,000 in exchange for a minority stake in the contextual advertising automation service eLama.ru, CNews.ru reported yesterday.
eLama.ru, which allows ad placement on Yandex.Direct and Google Adwords, is appreciated for its flexibility and ease of use. The company claims to serve more than 1,500 advertisers and small agencies. Its turnover is growing rapidly, increasing by 2.5 times (150%) annually. In 2013, total turnover was more than $6 million, according to the company.
With the investments it has attracted, the company plans to increase its growth dynamics siubstantially and reach annual turnover of about $90 million, or approximately 2% of the contextual advertising market in Russia, by 2018.
“The Internet marketing automation market is still emerging in Russia. In the next few years, the use of automation tools become the industry standard for any Internet marketer, regardless of experience or budget,” eLama.ru founder Alex Dovzhikov commented.
“Those processes have already occurred, for example, on the business process automation market (1C, SKB Circuit) and web development market (content management systems – 1C-Bitrix, Yumi). It’s safe to say that, thanks to the investments attracted, as well as progressive development and aggressive marketing, the eLama company is strengthening its current position as Internet marketing automation market leader in Russia and Kazakhstan,” the entrepreneur added.
eLama.ru also announced the start of integration with Sape, the largest search promotion service.
This is not the first investment of ImpulseVC in the field of online marketing. This past February the fund invested in RTB-Media, a startup that develops a real-time bidding SaaS offer.
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