teemo Raises $16M to Bring its Performance-Based Mobile Ad Platform to U.S. Retailers

teemo, the performance-based mobile advertising platform for offline retailers, is today announcing a $16 million Series A round led by Index Ventures. The round comes after a Seed Round in December 2015, and includes existing investors ISAI and Mosaic Ventures, along with prestigious angels such as Pascal Gauthier (ex-COO at Criteo) and Greg Coleman (President at Buzzfeed and ex-President at Criteo).

Co-founded in 2014 by Benoit Grouchko (CEO, ex-Criteo), François Wyss (COO, ex-Google) and Guillaume Charhon (CTO & serial entrepreneur), teemo enables brick and mortar retailers to use mobile ads to target consumers based on previously visited locations and determine which ads have resulted in store visits. This concept pioneered by teemo and referred to as Real Life Targeting, brings, for the first time, the sophistication of online advertising to offline retailers.

Offline retailers spend more than $100 billion on advertising every year, relying largely on outdoor and other offline channels to increase store visits with limited ability to track the performance of their advertising campaigns. teemo believes that much of that budget will shift in the future to mobile advertising that relies on location data to deliver precise targeting and measurement.  

The Real Life Targeting solution is the most accurate location-based solution in the market. Using the data from teemo, marketers can see exactly how many people visited a physical retail location after seeing a mobile ad, and they can optimize their campaign in real-time to maximize performance. Marketers can also set up new campaigns to target people that have visited their store already, or people who have visited the store of a competitor. This technology allows offline retailers to decrease the cost paid per physical visit and dramatically improve ROI on advertising spend.

Since launching in December 2015, teemo now works with more than 100 brick and mortar retailers, such as Toys “R” Us and McDonald’s and has driven several million euros of revenue in its first year. The company has grown headcount from 4 to 40 in 12 months, with 40 percent of that growth in R&D.

"Retailers spend more than $100B every year in offline marketing (leaflets, radio, out-of-home, advertising, etc), without being able to accurately measure its efficiency. However, thanks to mobile devices, there is now a bridge between online and offline," said Benoit Grouchko, CEO of teemo. "teemo offers retailers a traffic acquisition solution that works for offline marketing, but also leverages the online advertising standards the industry has become used to: accurate targeting, personalization, performance measurement and return on investment optimization. As a result, teemo is leveling the playing field between pure ecommerce and brick and mortar."

"The U.S. is the largest advertising market in the world and we are bringing a solution that has been proven to work, and is unlike anything else available," adds François Wyss, COO & co-founder of teemo, based in NYC and in charge of developing the US market.

“‘Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half’, goes the famous saying. Yet while most think that this phrase is now obsolete due to advancements in online advertising, it still holds true in the offline world, where retailers rely on a series of assumptions about consumer behaviour. teemo removes this guesswork by giving offline players powerful tools with which to target mobile users, so they can benefit from a pay-for-performance model that online players have long enjoyed with Criteo,” explains Dominique Vidal, Partner at Index Ventures.

"teemo meets an important need for Toys R Us, improving the ROI of our offline marketing. The use of teemo technology allows us to target prospects according to the places they visit in the real world," adds Valerie Mwanba, Head of Online Acquisition at Toys “R” Us, the World’s leading family leisure, baby care and toy megastore with over 1500 stores in 33 countries.

"teemo has successfully launched its product in Europe. We are pleased to welcome Index and take part of an ambitious international development plan," adds Jean-David Chamboredon, CEO at ISAI.

About teemo

teemo is a performance-based mobile advertising platform for offline retailers. teemo enables brick and mortar retailers to use mobile ads to target consumers based on previously visited locations and determine which ads have resulted in store visits. This concept pioneered by teemo and referred to as Real Life Targeting, brings, for the first time, the sophistication of online advertising to offline retailers . Co-founded in 2014 by Guillaume Charhon, François Wyss and Benoit Grouchko, teemo has 40 employees in Paris and New-York.