Monday, October 6, 2008

Polaris targets a piece of new $20M round for BlackArrow

By Mass High Tech Staff

Polaris Venture Partners is part of a $20 million financing of California-based BlackArrow Inc., a provider of multiplatform ad-management systems for viewer-controlled video, company officials said.

Waltham-based Polaris was joined in the funding by Cisco Systems Inc., Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital and the Mayfield Fund. BlackArrow plans to use the capital to expand its product development, distribution platform support and worldwide sales and marketing efforts, officials said.

San Mateo-Calif.-based BlackArrow has raised a total of $38 million in private financing, according to the company.

The BlackArrow ad management system is designed to enable content providers and distributors to derive advertising revenue from audiences that increasingly view video programming via broadband, live streaming, video on demand and other new ways of watching television outside of traditional, linear TV airtimes. The system is designed to manage, decide and report on targeted advertising inserted against on-demand programming across multiple playout platforms, officials said.

Polaris, which was founded in 1996, also operates an office in Seattle. The firm has $3 billion under management.

During 2007, Polaris and Atlas Venture, which is also based in Waltham, topped the list of the most active investors in New England, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.