NBCUniversal, Hearst Ventures join $20M investment in AdTech startup tvScientific to drive CTV performance advertising

tvScientific, a California-based AdTech startup and provider of a CTV platform for brands and apps, has raised $20 million in Series A funding to drive performance advertising for connected TVs. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from strategic partners NBCUniversal and Hearst Ventures.

Founded in 2020 by CEO Jason Fairchild, Bill Gross, David Koye, Jason Fairchild, and Kent Wakeford, the Pasadena, California-based tvScientific platform makes TV advertising accessible and measurable for brands and apps of all sizes. tvScientific offers a self-managed solution custom-built for performance marketers, that simplifies and automates TV buying and optimization, leveraging massive data to prove the actual value of TV advertising.

The platform reaches 95% of AVOD inventory using proprietary, deterministic ID technology to measure ad exposure to outcome in an approachable, radically transparent, and scalable way. An Idealab company, tvScientific was co-founded by senior executives with deep roots in programmatic advertising, digital media, and ad verification.

“Advertisers have always coveted the reach and engagement of television, but the medium’s immeasurability has made it inaccessible to all but the biggest brands,” said Jason Fairchild, co-founder and CEO of tvScientific. “We’ve unlocked the awesome power of television for all types of advertisers by simplifying and automating CTV buying and optimization while leveraging massive data to prove the value of TV advertising.”

Built specifically for performance marketers, tvScientific is the first company to offer ad buying, measurement, and optimization for CTV advertising all in one platform. The tvScientific platform connects with 95% of AVOD streaming apps through direct deals allowing advertisers to successfully scale their campaigns. The platform leverages proprietary attribution technology that enables advertisers to match ad exposure to site visitations and other desired outcomes with a 1:1 deterministic ID match, giving advertisers 100% accuracy and transparency they value.

The end result are highly targeted ads that can be optimized through tvScientific’s proprietary automatic optimization technology to help advertisers achieve their user acquisition goals, all while giving advertisers radical transparency and complete control over their data, including access to log-level events.

Television has been one of the most prominent advertising channels since the 1940s and ‘50s, but most performance-based advertisers eschew the channel in favor of digital media and other, more quantifiable channels. In the rise of CTV, which currently penetrates 94 million U.S. households, and its inherent measurement capabilities, performance advertisers face new opportunities. eMarketer predicts that CTV ad spend in the U.S. will reach $29.5 billion by 2024 — more than 40% of total TV ad spend today.

“The reality is that the $72 billion U.S. television advertising market is dominated by fewer than 500 national advertisers,” said Jeff Crowe, managing partner, Norwest Venture Partners. “CTV opens the door for many new advertisers to pursue performance advertising in an effective and cost-efficient way. tvScientific has practically eliminated the friction in CTV advertising and made it far easier for businesses of all sizes to buy CTV inventory with the control, measurement and accountability they’re accustomed to getting from search and social channels.”

Since launching its platform in April of 2021, tvScientific has experienced rapid growth. tvScientific offers fully managed services and also makes its technology available as a self-serve platform so marketers can bring their performance TV buying in-house at any time.

The funding brought tvScientific’s total amount raised to $23 million, including a $3 million seed round from IdealabX, AperiamVentures, and angel investors from companies such as Yahoo!, Kabam, Integral Ad Science, GoFundMe and others. The company was founded by senior executives with deep roots in digital media, programmatic advertising, and ad verification, including Bill Gross, founder of GoTo.com; Jason Fairchild, co-founder of OpenX; Kent Wakeford, former COO of Kabam and co-founder of Integral Ad Science; and David Koye, former chief digital officer of SummitMedia.

The company will use the new funding to grow its customer base, hire for key roles in engineering, product, data science, marketing, sales and other departments, and continue innovating the product in support of the company’s mission of making TV accessible, measurable and performant for all businesses.