Bering Media
Leading audience network for broadband internet service providers and mobile network operators.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
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| investor | €0.0 | round | |
| N/A | €0.0 | round | |
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| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Founded in 2008 by Michael Ho and Nicolas St-Pierre, Bering Media emerged from the co-founders' experience as Directors of Sales at Sandvine. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, the company established itself as a provider of hyperlocal geo-targeting technology for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and advertisers. The firm's core business revolves around providing location-based data to brands and agencies for targeted advertising. It accomplishes this through partnerships with internet service providers to collect IP location data, which is then made available to advertisers without disclosing personally identifiable information about users. This allows advertisers to reach local consumers online across any website.
Bering Media's technology platform was utilized by a significant portion of U.S. broadband service providers for campaigns from both local and national advertisers. A key feature of their service was a double-blind privacy architecture, a patent-pending technology that enabled advertisers to use carrier data across multiple networks while ensuring the data remained within the carrier's own network. This cookie-less solution provided advertisers with authoritative IP addresses directly from ISPs, updated in real-time to ensure accuracy.
The company secured seed funding of $500K on February 23, 2009, from MaRS Discovery District. This was followed by a Series A funding round on January 20, 2010, with investors including Tech Capital Partners, GrowthWorks Capital, and the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund. In a strategic move to accelerate growth, Steven McCartney was appointed President & CEO, while co-founder Michael Ho took on the role of VP of Business Development. On October 31, 2014, Bering Media was acquired by Audience Partners, an enterprise advertising management company. The acquisition was aimed at combining Audience Partners' addressable advertising platform with Bering Media's ISP and mobile audience network to allow for synchronized digital multi-screen advertising with linear and addressable television media buys.
Keywords: IP location data, hyperlocal geo-targeting, targeted advertising, internet service providers, ad-tech, audience network, mobile network operators, data privacy, addressable advertising, online advertising, digital media, location-based services, carrier data, multi-screen advertising, Michael Ho, Nicolas St-Pierre, Audience Partners, ISP advertising, mobile advertising, ad targeting technology