 | |
| Type | Technology |
|---|---|
| Industry | Advertising |
| Founded | Austin, Texas, United States (2010) |
| Founder |
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| Headquarters | Austin, Texas , United States |
Key people | |
| Products |
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| Website | ownlocal |
OwnLocal is an Austin, Texas-based digital advertising startup founded in 2010. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Lloyd Armbrust and Jason Novek founded Seeing Interactive in 2010. [1] [5] [6] [7] Backed by seed accelerator Y-Combinator, the company launched as a service for local newspaper, TV, and Radio stations. [1] [4] [5] [8] After its launch, the startup raised $1 million in seed funding from various investors, including Lerer Ventures, Baseline Ventures, and angel investors Joshua Schachter and Paul Buchheit. [1] [9] The company changed its name to OwnLocal in March 2011. [10]
In October 2011, OwnLocal received an undisclosed amount from a funding round led by Automattic, the developer of WordPress. [3] [8] The incubator 500 Startups also participated in the funding.[ citation needed ] The round raised the company's total funding to $2 million. [2] [11]
OwnLocal was one of the first for-profit companies to receive funding from the Knight Enterprise Fund, a fund for media innovation. [2] [8] [11] The company also received an equity investment in February 2013 from Digital First Ventures for an undisclosed amount. [12]
In May 2014, OwnLocal acquired Whoosh Traffic. [13] Whoosh Traffic was an Austin-based company that powered SEO reporting for large Fortune 500 companies and small businesses. [14] Whoosh was backed by Techstars, 500 Startups, and several other major technology investors.
OwnLocal acquired Sidengo on March 10, 2015. [15] Sidengo was an easy-to-use website builder for people with no design or technical skills. Sidengo was started in Monterrey, Mexico by Jorge González and Gabriel Garza. [16] As of March 2015, OwnLocal had integrated the Sidengo technology into their platform and planned to distribute the technology to their media partners. [15]
OwnLocal acquired Inbound Press [17] in March 2016. Inbound Press was created in Orange County, California by Andrew McFadden. The company's flagship product, Smart Media Kit, is a proven process that generates new advertising leads for newspapers. OwnLocal had added Smart Media Kit to its product offerings [18] as of June 2016.
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