Rocket Fuel, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to try improving the relevance of displayed ads, is taking on a third funding round, despite only taking its second back in September 2010.
This third round is $6.6 million and comes from Northgate plus previous backers Mohr Davidow Ventures, Labrador Capital Fund, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Growth Partners and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The company, in its announcement, said generally the funding is required for new product development, business development, sales and marketing.
According to the company’s website: “There should be no contextual ad networks or behavioral ad networks. It’s like debating whether you should have eyes or ears. If you can have both, it’s a win and there’s no point debating.”
So it trains a range of software technologies to derive a better picture of who audiences are in order to better target impressions.
Rocket Fuel is led by CEO George John.