Plista secures €2.5m in Series A funding for its contextual advertising platform

Plista, the self-declared “preference-based advertising network” that is primarily targeted towards monetizing publishers and major outlets, is raising €2.5 million in a Series A funding from Crédit Agricole Private Equity and NWZ publishing house.

Existing backers DuMont Venture and semi-public High-Tech Gründerfonds have also participated.

The Germany-based company, founded in 2009 by serial entrepreneur Dominik Matyka, takes an innovative approach to advertising, such as their Recommendation Ads, which work on top of existing display advertising. A key argument for using their service is that ads shown are highly relevant to the user by being matched to the respective content. They also claim to have average CTRs between 8% and 12%, which compared to other advertising networks is on the high side.

Among their 400 publishers, Plista has managed to attract several high profile outlets as customers, such as Spiegel.de and Amica (both German). Obviously, having NWZ publishing house as an investor equips the startup with new outlets for integrating their advertising platform, resulting in a strategic investment that is probably beneficial to both parties.