PocketMath makes buying mobile ad impressions easier

It integrates over 20 ad exchanges and offers over 20B impressions a day.

Inspired by the movie, "Minority Report,” close friends JD Lee, Eric Tucker and Casey Grooms who met at University of Texas thought of using data about consumer purchases to serve more relevant ads. Their idea was to use facial recognition technology, and serve relevant in-store ads and promotions to consumers. The founders attempted to build their own Point of Sale system but when evaluated it with retailers, they found that the technology was too complex that time. After simplifying, and discovering the technology of "real-time bidding”, PocketMath was born.

PocketMath is a self-serve mobile advertising platform, (or a Demand Side Platform in industry terminology), which makes it easy to buy mobile (phone or tablet) ad impressions, within apps, games, and mobile websites, all in real-time. Currently, they integrated with over 20 ad exchanges while offering over 20 billion impressions a day

PocketMath filters through billions of ad impressions and opportunities per second to help advertisers and businesses execute highly targeted marketing campaigns that reach out to their ideal audiences. After a simple sign up process, users gain immediate access to the world's supply of mobile inventory, using the technology of real time bidding (RTB).

RTB is structured similarly to an open auction where advertisers with the highest--hence, winning--bid serve ads to consumers across websites and apps. Clients can target or retarget their intended audience using parameters such as time of day device type and location.

According to a spokesperson from PocketMath, the platform’s self-serve capability is one of its main differentiators. They focus on selling the technology solution to their clients which ranges from businesses to agencies to ad networks. By veering away from campaign to campaign selling, they are able to achieve two advantages: one, they avoid having to pitch to a client anew every time their campaign is over; and two, they can scale efficiently because predicting growth and revenue more accurately is made easier. PocketMath also does not require minimum spend or commitments because they want the technology solution to remain accessible.

Last November, PocketMath received US$10M investment from Rakuten Ventures.

How it started

In 2012, after rebranding their idea of consumer purchases and facial recognition technology to exploring desktop based prototype for RTB, the feedback was an overwhelmingly "we want mobile". Of course, the founders thought turning down business would be crazy so they started work on a mobile platform - which is now called PocketMath.

Before raising the Series A funding, PocketMath was completely bootstrapped. According to their spokesperson, that wasn’t necessarily by choice as they faced skepticism about the product or based on their location from investors.

For now , PocketMath’s focus is to accelerate product growth and develop their sales branch . They started off 2015 by launching a major update to their product and plans for the year include expanding their inventory to include more video and native ad choices and about refining features to deliver a better experience for their users.

PocketMath’s vision is to take what they have built for the big brands and make it accessible to everyone.

To achieve this, the PocketMath team is also looking to grow their core engineering team, invest in data scientists and open up their sales presence in Europe, Japan, China and Tel Aviv. 

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COMPANY PROFILE

Company Name: PocketMath
Founders: JD Lee, Eric Tucker, Casey Grooms
Website: www.pocketmath.com
Total Funding at hand: US $10M
Source of funding: Rakuten Ventures
Major investors: Rakuten Ventures
Start of operation: In operation since 2011, product went live in 2013
 

For startups wanting to be featured, send your message to Lee Anne Babierra at research@charltonmediamail.com