Progress Ventures

Progress Ventures is a Boston-based private equity firm established in 2008, specializing in early-stage investments within the media and marketing technology sectors. The firm focuses on seed to Series A funding, partnering with experienced entrepreneurs to support promising start-ups. Progress Ventures aims to enhance the digital marketing and content ecosystem by investing in companies that are poised to become vital players in these emerging platforms.

Brett Chatfield

Associate

Rick Gallagher

Partner, Senior Managing Director, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer

James Hamilton

Venture Analyst

Christopher Legg

Partner

Nick MacShane

Founding Partner

Adriaan Zur Muhlen

Managing Partner

Sam Thompson

Founding Partner

27 past transactions

Veritonic

Series A in 2022
Veritonic, Inc. is a marketing analytics platform based in New York, specializing in commercial sound and serving the advertising industry. Founded in 2015 by Andrew Eisner and Scott Simonelli, the company provides artificial intelligence-driven metrics and marketing response data to measure, compare, and test various audio elements, including music, voiceovers, jingles, and audio logos. Veritonic's services encompass online testing, analytics, and workflow management, enabling users to make data-driven decisions, measure emotional responses, and gather both qualitative and quantitative insights. The platform facilitates benchmarking of brand progress and allows users to efficiently manage, save, and share audio tracks, thereby enhancing their marketing strategies.

Tenovos

Series A in 2021
Tenovos, Inc. is a company that specializes in an Active Story Management platform designed to help brands connect with customers through engaging narratives and data-driven insights. Founded in 2018 and based in New York City, Tenovos offers a range of products including Story Manager, which provides teams and marketers with tools for managing the asset lifecycle; Story Streams, which aids in the orchestration and optimization of content; Story Insights, which delivers analytics to track performance; and Story Cloud, which facilitates enterprise-grade microservices and data integration. The platform is particularly valuable for consumer brands in sectors such as consumer packaged goods, retail, media and entertainment, and food and beverage, enabling them to create compelling stories that inform, inspire, and connect with their audiences.

ID5

Series A in 2021
ID5 Technology Ltd. develops and operates centralised cross-domain identity (ID) synchronisation platform. Its services for publishers include management of ID synchronisations from a centralised platform, decides which partner can and cannot synchronise cookies on websites, monitors cookies synchronisation rates with partners, and ensure privacy compliance and consent management across ecosystem. The company’s services for data providers include complements existing id sync process or replaces new ones, eliminates ramp-up time to connect to new platforms, and maximizes match rate with existing or new platforms. Its Adtech platforms services include saves bandwidth, processing and storage costs by reducing pixels required to sync with partners, manages relationships with data providers, match tables and data transfer protocols, and eliminates ramp-up and connects to new partners. The company was founded in 2017 and is based in London, United Kingdom.

Disruptel

Funding Round in 2021
Disruptel is a company specializing in visually-aware artificial intelligence that leverages computer vision and natural language processing to understand image and video content. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, Disruptel develops a cloud platform that provides a voice-enabled interface for users to interact with on-screen content. This innovative technology allows individuals to ask questions about what they are viewing and facilitates the purchase of products that appear in videos. Disruptel collaborates with streaming services, device manufacturers, and operating systems to enhance customer experiences and streamline access to relevant information.

Blutag

Seed Round in 2021
Blutag Inc. is a New York-based company that specializes in online applications designed to enhance voice shopping experiences for retailers and brands. Founded in 2015, Blutag leverages over 20 years of expertise in eCommerce and technology to provide innovative voice-first cloud services. The company's solutions aim to simplify the shopping process, enabling consumers to quickly and easily discover products that align with their preferences through straightforward voice commands.

Tenovos

Series A in 2020
Tenovos, Inc. is a company that specializes in an Active Story Management platform designed to help brands connect with customers through engaging narratives and data-driven insights. Founded in 2018 and based in New York City, Tenovos offers a range of products including Story Manager, which provides teams and marketers with tools for managing the asset lifecycle; Story Streams, which aids in the orchestration and optimization of content; Story Insights, which delivers analytics to track performance; and Story Cloud, which facilitates enterprise-grade microservices and data integration. The platform is particularly valuable for consumer brands in sectors such as consumer packaged goods, retail, media and entertainment, and food and beverage, enabling them to create compelling stories that inform, inspire, and connect with their audiences.

Tru Optik

Venture Round in 2019
Tru Optik Data Corp. is a digital media intelligence company based in Stamford, Connecticut, specializing in audience measurement and data management for the streaming media ecosystem. Founded in 2013, the company offers a comprehensive OTT marketing cloud that enables brand marketers and media companies to measure audience engagement and consumer demand. Tru Optik provides a range of services, including OTT data management, analytics, consumer activation, and measurement solutions. Its patented Household Graph™, which encompasses over 80 million homes, facilitates identity resolution, allowing leading brands, agencies, and media companies to connect with consumers across various platforms, including OTT, streaming audio, and gaming. As of October 1, 2020, Tru Optik operates as a subsidiary of TransUnion, further enhancing its capabilities in the digital marketing landscape.

Blutag

Seed Round in 2019
Blutag Inc. is a New York-based company that specializes in online applications designed to enhance voice shopping experiences for retailers and brands. Founded in 2015, Blutag leverages over 20 years of expertise in eCommerce and technology to provide innovative voice-first cloud services. The company's solutions aim to simplify the shopping process, enabling consumers to quickly and easily discover products that align with their preferences through straightforward voice commands.

Skyword

Venture Round in 2018
Skyword moves marketing leaders and those who create content for them forward. By embracing a sustainable, scalable approach to original storytelling, Skyword liberates brands from ineffective marketing practices and inspires them to create deeper connections with their audiences. The Skyword Platform makes it easy to produce, optimize, and promote content at any scale to create meaningful, lasting relationships. Skyword also provides access to a community of thousands of freelance writers and videographers, an editorial team, and program managers who help move clients’ content marketing programs to new levels of creative excellence. Skyword is a privately held company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices in Palo Alto, CA, and New York City. The company’s technology center is located in Pittsburgh, PA. Investors include Cox Media Group, Allen & Company, Progress Ventures, and American Public Media Group.

Instreamatic

Seed Round in 2017
An AI-powered Voice Dialogue Marketing platform designed to power interactive, dialog-based advertisements on mobile platforms. The company offers an all-in-one solution with fast and easy integration, providing audio publishers and advertisers with the tools to manage, measure and monetize ad inventory with highly engaging dialog ads.

Tru Optik

Seed Round in 2015
Tru Optik Data Corp. is a digital media intelligence company based in Stamford, Connecticut, specializing in audience measurement and data management for the streaming media ecosystem. Founded in 2013, the company offers a comprehensive OTT marketing cloud that enables brand marketers and media companies to measure audience engagement and consumer demand. Tru Optik provides a range of services, including OTT data management, analytics, consumer activation, and measurement solutions. Its patented Household Graph™, which encompasses over 80 million homes, facilitates identity resolution, allowing leading brands, agencies, and media companies to connect with consumers across various platforms, including OTT, streaming audio, and gaming. As of October 1, 2020, Tru Optik operates as a subsidiary of TransUnion, further enhancing its capabilities in the digital marketing landscape.

IRIS.TV

Series A in 2015
IRIS.TV is a universal video intelligence platform focused on onboarding, processing, and activating video data. Our mission is to provide the world’s publishers, brands, agencies, and technology providers with a comprehensive understanding of every streaming video in order to create better consumer experiences and business outcomes. Since 2013, the leading media, data, and advertising technologies have utilized IRIS.TV’s privacy-first and neutral data infrastructure to build and scale AI/ML solutions including metadata enrichment, personalized content recommendations, analytics, and contextual advertising. For more information, visit www.iris.tv.

CraveLabs

Seed Round in 2014
CraveLabs, Inc., a software company, provides a real-time location intelligence and mobile advertising platform for brands and agencies, retailers, and Fortune 500 media companies. It offers DropIn, a software platform that uses location data to monitor locations and deliver ads at a time, and place when customers are likely to engage. The company’s DropIn delivers hyper-local ad campaigns and helps to reach location-based audiences. CraveLabs, Inc. is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Pixability

Series B in 2014
Pixability is a video advertising software company that specializes in optimizing complex campaigns across YouTube and Connected TV using data science. It offers a cloud-based platform that includes various features such as campaign management, channel management, and insights into industry trends and competitive environments. The company’s flagship product, PixabilityONE, is designed to enhance video advertising efforts by streamlining campaign creation, benchmarking, testing, and reporting. Additionally, Pixability provides BrandTrack, a solution that helps marketers measure brand performance on YouTube and adjust their strategies accordingly. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Pixability has expanded its presence with offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and London, serving a diverse clientele that includes media agencies, brands, and in-house marketing teams.

LISNR

Series A in 2014
LISNR® powers transactions across the customer journey globally with the most advanced Ultrasonic Data Platform. Today, companies like Jaguar Land Rover, Ticketmaster, and Visa use this solution to create secure & frictionless moments for consumers around the world. Founded in 2012, LISNR is located in Oakland, CA and Cincinnati, OH. Major investors include Intel, Jump Capital, Mercury Fund, R/GA, and Synchrony Financial.

Massive Interactive

Post in 2014
Massive Interactive, Inc. is a software and design services provider specializing in the management and distribution of Internet protocol-based video and media assets in the UK and Australia. The company offers a comprehensive software platform that enables enterprise customers, including telecommunications, media, and content distribution companies, to efficiently manage and deliver video content across a wide range of consumer devices such as smart TVs, smartphones, and set-top boxes. Its product suite includes the Multiscreen Development Kit, which facilitates quick deployment of applications, and the Managed Video Platform, providing end-to-end video management from ingest to playback. Massive Interactive operates on both a subscription and enterprise licensing model, and also offers design and technical services to enhance user engagement. Established in 1996 and headquartered in London, the company has served notable clients such as the BBC, Deutsche Telekom, and various airlines, reflecting its strong presence in the media and technology sectors. Massive Interactive became a subsidiary of Deltatre Limited in 2018.

Capture Higher Ed

Seed Round in 2013
Capture is a family of innovators, motivated by the challenge of solving the hardest problems in higher ed. It leverages demographic, socio-economic, and behavioral data to deliver valuable insights for more effective and progressive student recruitment. Using an algorithmic approach, Capture maximizes meaningful engagement with prospective students at the most influential times in their decision-making journey, providing a better ROI to its partner institutions. Capture’s proprietary technology is built specifically for enrollment professionals, with real-time analytics and data visualization tools to easily monitor progress and measure the success of enrollment goals at any time. Headquartered in Louisville, KY, Capture Higher Ed has served nearly 75 higher education institutions across the country and has been recognized by Inc. 5000 as a 2015 fastest-growing U.S. company.

Trust Metrics

Angel Round in 2011
Trust Metrics is a brand safety planning tool that measures standards for publisher transparency, effectiveness, and quality. Its Trust Management Platform delivers data, technology, and consulting services enabling the industry to solve the misinformation/disinformation crisis. The Trust Management Platform consolidates a growing corpus of raw, statistical, modeled, and judgment data, ranging from publisher reputation and transparency, source quality, brand safety, traffic & circulation, political bias, and mis/disinformation indicators. It was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

Qualia

Venture Round in 2011
Qualia empowers organizations to deliver seamless consumer experiences across all devices, from intent to conversion. The Qualia Data Intelligence Platform combines its IQ Decision Engine™ with cross-device technology to create a closed-loop, device agnostic, audience insights solution. Trusted by leading brands, agencies and marketing technology providers, Qualia’s cloud-based platform continuously identifies in-market consumers on all of their devices and digital touchpoints, enabling real-time, omni-channel targeting, reach, measurement and attribution. Qualia is led by Kathy Leake, CEO (also co-founder of Dstillery) who is committed to defining the next generation of consumer targeting through data integrity and quality. The company is headquartered in NYC and has offices in Chicago, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta. For additional information, visit www.qualia-media.com

Skyword

Debt Financing in 2011
Skyword moves marketing leaders and those who create content for them forward. By embracing a sustainable, scalable approach to original storytelling, Skyword liberates brands from ineffective marketing practices and inspires them to create deeper connections with their audiences. The Skyword Platform makes it easy to produce, optimize, and promote content at any scale to create meaningful, lasting relationships. Skyword also provides access to a community of thousands of freelance writers and videographers, an editorial team, and program managers who help move clients’ content marketing programs to new levels of creative excellence. Skyword is a privately held company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices in Palo Alto, CA, and New York City. The company’s technology center is located in Pittsburgh, PA. Investors include Cox Media Group, Allen & Company, Progress Ventures, and American Public Media Group.

Localytics

Series A in 2011
Upland Localytics is a mobile app analytics and marketing platform that provides businesses with insights and tools to enhance mobile app acquisition, engagement, and retention. The platform serves over 6,000 applications across more than 2 billion devices, catering to a diverse range of companies, including Live Nation, HSN, Comcast, and The New York Times. In addition to its analytics capabilities, Localytics is also recognized as a mobile engagement platform for both mobile and web applications, helping organizations optimize user experiences and drive growth in the digital landscape.

Simpli.fi

Seed Round in 2011
Simpli.fi is an advertising technology company that specializes in local programmatic advertising. Established in 2010, it offers the In.finity™ Programmatic Marketing Platform, which allows marketers to leverage unstructured data for enhanced targeting and optimization in real-time bidding advertising exchanges. This platform enables advertisers to manage their campaigns at a granular level, including targeting, bidding, and reporting on individual data elements. Simpli.fi has experienced significant growth, evidenced by its 242% compound annual growth rate and the successful launch of over 50,000 advertising campaigns. The company's focus on simplifying the digital advertising process positions it as a leader in the programmatic advertising space.

Crunched

Seed Round in 2011
Crunched is a presentation and analytics platform that helps business professionals close more deals with deeper insights into their customers. Crunched shows you who your most valuable customers are so you can prioritize the right people at the right time with the right solution.

Gather

Series E in 2010
Gather is a demand-driven media company. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Skyword, the leader in Search-Driven Media (SDM). The site is powered by content created by Skywriters, who create more than 8,000 pieces of content that reach more than 9M people worldwide. Gather is the place where millions and millions of people come for fresh perspective on what's happening now. Gather members can share their own views and join in conversation with others who share their interests. The Gather site offers thousands of pieces of content in the following categories: Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Celebs, Business and Technology.

Integral Ad Science

Seed Round in 2009
Integral Ad Science operates as a media valuation platform that enables digital buyers and sellers to evaluate the worth of advertising opportunities across various channels and devices. The company provides a range of solutions tailored for the digital advertising ecosystem, including customizable verification tools to block unwanted impressions and enhance return on investment insights. Its offerings cater to different stakeholders such as brands, agencies, publishers, and ad-tech firms, with solutions designed to improve programmatic buying and assess inventory quality in real-time. Integral Ad Science employs data science and engineering to deliver detailed insights on media quality metrics, thereby optimizing advertising effectiveness. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in New York, the company has expanded its operations globally, ensuring its technology is accessible to a diverse clientele across multiple countries.

MediaMath

Pre Seed Round in 2008
MediaMath, Inc. is a provider of digital advertising media and data management technology solutions for advertisers globally. The company's TerminalOne platform facilitates the activation of data, automates execution, and optimizes advertising interactions across various addressable media. Additionally, MediaMath offers an Omnichannel programmatic marketing platform that enhances personalized customer engagement, accesses media at scale, and utilizes machine learning for measurement and optimization. Beyond technology, MediaMath provides professional services in programmatic strategy, analytics, technology support, and advertising operations, as well as training and certification programs in digital marketing. Founded in 2007, MediaMath is headquartered in New York City and operates additional offices in various locations, including California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and India.

Dstillery

Pre Seed Round in 2008
Dstillery, Inc. is a digital intelligence platform that specializes in custom audience solutions for brands and their media partners. Founded in 2008 and based in New York, the company offers a range of marketing solutions designed to enhance brand awareness, consideration, and customer retention. Dstillery's premier product, Custom AI Audiences, utilizes tailored artificial intelligence models to deliver accurate and scalable audience targeting. The platform integrates mobile location insights with desktop behaviors, optimizing marketing efforts across various channels, including mobile, desktop, and video. Dstillery also provides geospatial insights through its Dscover Maps tool, allowing brands to analyze market composition by geography. The company serves a diverse clientele across multiple sectors, including retail, finance, and technology, helping them leverage customer data to drive revenue growth and improve audience engagement.