Adknowledge

Founded in 2004, Adknowledge is a digital advertising company headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. According to the company website, it’s the fourth-largest digital marketplace behind only Google, Facebook and Microsoft’s Bing—and the largest among privately held digital advertising companies. Adknowledge reportedly has designed and managed campaigns for more than 10,000 companies through social media sites, apps, email and display ads, including leading brands such as Range Rover, LG and L’Oréal.

History

Adknowledge was founded by Scott Lynn, who led the company as President and CEO until 2012 when then-COO Ben Legg (former COO for European Directories and Google Europe) became CEO.

Acquisitions and Growth

Adknowledge has grown organically and through acquisitions. This includes purchases of Super Rewards (sold in 2012), Miva, Cubics, Lookery, Media Run, Adonomics, Hydra Group and AdParlor.

AdParlor

In November 2011, Adknowledge acquired Toronto-based AdParlor, a provider of social media advertising and management, which boasts more than a billion daily impressions on Facebook®. In April 2012, Facebook merged the preferred developer consultant and marketing application programming interface developer programs into one program, named the Preferred Marketing Developer program, of which AdParlor was an initial member. At the time of creation, the program included 232 member companies in 35 countries. On September 20, 2012, Facebook designated AdParlor a Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer (sPMD).

Global Presence

Adknowledge has more than 300 employees located on three continents. In addition to the corporate headquarters in Kansas City, Adknowledge has North American offices in Toronto, San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Fort Myers. Adknowledge also has overseas locations in London, Shanghai, Paris, and Munich.

Funding

In 2006, Adknowledge raised $48 million from Technology Crossover Ventures, which retains an undisclosed ownership stake. In 2011, Adknowledge raised $200 million in D&E financing to fund growth and company acquisitions.