Online advertising player Encirq Corporation has raised more than $37 million from new and existing venture capital sources in its third round of funding.
The company, which enables marketers to reach customers with targeted messaging without releasing any information to the marketers, received funding from its two existing institutional investors, Chase Capital Partners and Technology Partners, and brought on four new institutional investors, including GE Capital.
“We are gaining momentum with our business model and this recent round of funding has brought further validation to our client-side solution for private, personalized marketing,” said Encirq president and chief executive Mark Vogel.
Encirq’s technology sorts through advertisements and pulls up those that match the consumer’s preferences, which are stored, encrypted, on the user’s computer. All data processing, analysis and storage occurs locally, rather than in a marketer’s database.
The company said it will use the funding to support widespread rollout of its initial product, which is geared to banks, brokerage houses, and other services that use online reports.
That product, “Illuminated Statements,” enhances financial statements and reports with logos, addresses and other transaction information from companies with whom the customer has transacted. It also displays special offers from those companies, but which are only displayed based on the profile stored on the user’s computer; even though banner ads are shown, no data actually changes hands to marketers.
“We have looked at many companies and Encirq is unique in delivering on the promise of personalized marketing while protecting consumer privacy,” said Chase Capital general partner Charlie Walker.
“With Encirq’s privacy solution, companies across all industries will be able to conduct marketing campaigns based on a complete view of their customers’ online and offline buying preferences, without ever seeing their personal data.”
Encirq said the company will use its new funds to develop additional products for other industries.
Since Encirq offers Illuminated Statements to banks for free, and even gives them a share of the marketing revenues, its two biggest investors this round will be in position to easily roll out the company’s services.
Chase Capital is affiliated with Chase Manhattan Bank, one of the largest domestic issuers of credit cards, while GE Capital’s Card Services division issues private-label credit cards to more than 100 million consumers.
However, spokespeople from the companies declined to comment on such plans.
In addition to GE Capital and Chase Capital, other institutional investors include Charter Ventures, Financial Technology Ventures and Shamrock Holdings.
